As we enter the Year of the Snake, I want to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year!
To celebrate, families get together for a festive meals at each other's houses or in restaurants nowadays to eat special holiday foods. Cell phones are constantly chiming with QQ chat messages and with incoming calls from family and friends far away.
In cold places like Beijing or New York, families will often gather around a hot pot where cabbage, mushrooms, fish balls, and paper-thin slices of meat is dipped into a fragrant broth to cook instantly before being dipped into a flavored sauce and eaten.
Outside, firecrackers and other inciendiary devices are set off to scare away bad luck. I once spent Chinese New Year in the southern city of Kunming where the noise from the firecrackers continued for more than for straight 48 hours; sleep was impossible, it was just one big party going on!
The nice thing about working in an internationally-themed school like East-West is that New Year's comes several times a year. So as we dig out from this snow storm, I'd like to wish everyone a lucky New Year filled with good fortune and health.
Shin Nen Kwai La! (northern Chinese way to say Happy New Year!)
Gong Shi Fai Tsai! (southern Chinese way to say Happy New Year!)
Warm Regards,
Ben Sherman
Principal
East-West School
