The Year of the Horse
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Happy New Year! ... again? Well, it's Spring Festival and the Chinese New Year. This year, it was on February 12th and was very close to Valentine's Day this year. This year was a little different from other New Year's that I have had.
This year, my mother had more free time and decided to do more preparations for the new year. She went out and bought a lot of flowers for the home and garden. It added colour to the house. She also decided to have a big family dinner at home.
Another reason it was different this year is because there were some people who were spending their first Spring Festival outside of China. A friend from Wuhu and her daughter arrived last year. Then somebody else also arrived a few days before the new year. We invited them to our home for the last dinner of the year.
Unfortunately, I was not at the dinner that night. I was tutoring. But surprisingly, my students' parents asked me and their piano teacher to stay to eat some special tang yuen. It was different from the tang yuen I usually eat. In fact, it was a little like nian gao. It was very tasty and I was very grateful for their hospitality.
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Canada Post Stamp Collection: ( www.canadapost.ca/personal/collecting/default-e.asp)
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Valentine's Day
Do you know the story of Saint Valentine? Well, there are actually many stories, but here is one.
Valentine was a priest during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Valentine was revered by the young and old, rich and poor, with people of all walks of life attending his services. At this time Emperor Claudius was heavily recruiting men to serve as soldiers for his wars without much success. The men preferred not to leave their wives, families and sweethearts to fight in foreign lands. Claudius became angry and declared that no more marriages could be performed and all engagements were cancelled.
Valentine thought this to be unfair and secretly married several
couples. When Claudius found out, he threw Valentine in prison
where he died. Friends of the priest retrieved his body and buried
it in a churchyard in Rome.
taken from Valentine Be Mine! Origins of Valentine's
Day (
www.techdirect.com/valentine/origin.html
)
Today, Valentine's Day is usually the day that you express your love to your loved ones. For young schoolage children, they will usually give Valentine Day cards to all of their classmates. For high school students, they may decide to send roses and other flowers to their crushes.
For adults with a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife, Valentine's Day is a day where they will often send gifts to one another and sometimes spend a dinner together. It's meant to be a romantic night.
As for all those single people, we just sit at home and do nothing special. I hear in Korea, they have a special day for singles. That would be nice to have for all the single people to feel special.