福壽雙全 Live Long and Prosper

Yilan traditional market

Chinese New Year began on February 19th, ringing in the year of the Wood Sheep. This year was the first Lunar New Year Spring Festival, that I felt I was missing out. This would of been my 7th consecutive Chinese New Year in a row, my 9th in total (counting when I lived in Tamsui 15 years ago). Of course I know some of the traditions and preparations; that big family reunion dinner, new clothes, red envelopes, every day has some kind of traditional protocol -what to eat- who to eat with-special greetings. I can say that this year I really missed the idea of family togetherness.  Oddly, this is the first Chinese New Years I didn't buy red underwear (a common tradition) maybe I should of bought a pair of red panties with dancing goats and sleeping sheep, hardly a compensation. 

Yilan City

Usually I am in a nearby foreign country for 2 weeks and don't feel like I missed out- Taiwanese celebrations are so noisy with in your face fireworks and jarring temple music at the crack of dawn. This year I went to Chiang Mai for a blessed week and got a taste of New Years celebrations Thai style. 

年年有餘! Or “may every year end in abundance.” Since the character for “abundance” (yu, 餘) is a homophone for the character for “fish” (yu, 魚), fish a traditional symbol, motif, and food for CNY.

My whole month has been one big New Year holiday. Like the mighty ram, I pretty much headbutted my job off a cliff (see, "Blissfully Unemployed"). The whole reason I up and moved my daughter and I to Yilan was soon down the alpine abyss. Not satisfied with that, I sadly cemented the final status of my man/woman drama into pleutonicness on the last day of our Thai trip. The whole out with the old in with the new taken to a supreme level. Not that I have a throw away mentality but  it was just time to be honest with myself.

Chiang Mai

I was not expecting Chiang Mai, and our guesthouse to cator to so many Mainland Chinese tourists (see, "Record High") . It was kind of bizarre and at the same time completely normal to tell the young mainland Chinese lady, to keep her voice quiet, people are trying to sleep at 2 in the morning (I think I might of opened her door and let myself in). On the upside, my daughter had playmates her age at the pool from the Mainland, so as we spent our down time poolside, mostly with a lot of Mandarin. I casually enjoyed the guesthouse owners complaints about Chinese tourists- the same complaints I've heard from Taiwanese people - their Center of the World Entitlement (see, "Nouveau Rich" and "Chinese Database"). For the most part, the Chinese tourists I encountered there were fine, no crazy headlines. They were utterly tickled and impressed at my kid's impeccable Taiwanese accent.

Chiang Mai

In Chiang Mai they have a small China town east of the old center/moat. For several blocks it looked like the neighborhood was painted red. On our last day, we had a chance encounter on the way to breakfast in the old town. In front of Thapae Gate, there was a Chinese New Years celebration with different groups of the community in full costume. Unlike Taiwan, it was relatively quiet and serene, no fireworks and the whole thing lasted about an hour. If you would of slept in, you wouldn't even have known what you were missing. What caught my attention was the 5 year old boy on the top of a dangerously high pole, my daughter half joked, "They're going to sacrifice him!" I could not believe what I was seeing. I caught his performance and the Pole Lion Dance here:

It's still technically New Years, and with the 3 day 2-28 weekend, the holidaze just keeps on going. It will culminate on Lantern Festival which is March 5th this year. So with all the energy of this New Year sweeping clean out the innermost cobwebs of my life and my being, the appropriate maxim would be,  "大展鴻圖"  or "May you realize your ambitions." I'm still ever on the quest to realize what my ambitions may be- but look out for the day when that vision is crystal.

 As of right now I'm enjoying the ride, trying to keep my eyes open. I'm in an interesting and uncomfortable place of transition, ie, I'm broke, super single, missing my lost friendship and looking for an afternoon job in a new city where I still hardly know anyone. Its like one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs, "I sure don't know what I'm going for, but I'm gonna go for it for sure." Not a boring way to start the new year.

Previous Posts on Chinese New Years:
Last year's trip to Burma, "Stuck in Singapore" (I never did finish writing about our fabulous trip to  Myanmar
Chinese New Year to Me

Resources:

http://ttf.ncfta.gov.tw/en-us/Season/Content.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

Valentine's Day, the longest day of 2015

Early flight means an early check in at our guesthouse, but first a swim before breakfast

Friday the 13th we left for Taoyuan airport, but not to fly. We stayed at a nearby motel, a love motel recommended from a friend of a friend as a cheaper alternative than the airport transit hotel, or sleeping in the airport. We might as well have, I didn't get much sleep with planes thundering over us, but my daughter was able to catch a few Zzz, which was important as we had to wake at 3:30 am.

Our first Song Thaew ride

We arrived in Chiang Mai around 9 am, took a taxi to Natlen Boutique Guesthouse outside the old center and having to wait for our room, had a swim and breakfast. After a shower power rest in our room, it was off exploring temples. We hailed down a local songthaews, red pick up trucks converted to taxis, which are surprisingly cheaper than tuk-tuks.

12 zodiac animal offering, Tiger in the center

Our first temple was the Wat Phra Singh which had several chedis and smaller temples and shrines on  its grounds, including the main attraction Whuan Lai Kham built in 1345 and a small reclining Buddha that was empty. There was a copy of the Jade Buddha in the teak Ubosot built in 1806.  It was a beautiful introduction to Chiang Mai. The grounds were peaceful, the weather was neither hot or cold, with sunshine and a gentle breeze rustling the leaves.

I saw a small restaurant on the way that looked packed and had as many locals as foreigners, so we walked back there, downed a few coconuts and feasted. I had an amazing spicy tuna salad and a (?) soup.  Oh the world for heaps of tamarind and lemongrass!

Feeling tired we returned to our guesthouse and instead of sleeping, lounged by the pool for a read, my daughter was in the water the rest of the day. I had to beg her to take a late nap around 5, so we could go see some kickboxing that started at 9:30. When I tried to wake her for dinner at 7:30 pm, she did not want to get up and was quite the grouch potato during dinner and didn't perk up until the kickboxing started.

The audience was mostly western tourists, so I'm not sure how authentic the whole set up was, but it definitely was an exciting introduction for us. We had nice seats near the ring, but as the seats filled in, my daughter couldn't see over the melon heads in front of us. We moved back near the bar which was raised and actually it was a better view, not just of the matches, but the Thai family members that came to support their fighter. It also became the "box seats" of the team of the final match (a Swiss guy against a local).

                          (Watch my video of that night and my daughter's opinion here).

We were pleasantly surprised to see a female match and an entertaining interlude of several fatty, blindfolded fighters swinging blindly at each other for comic relief. My first impression was that the fighters seemed to have a lot of respect for their opponents, obviously they are are friends outside the ring. We saw several hair raising KO's which was unexpected-of course when I put my camera down.

Natlen Guesthouse at night

We returned around 11 pm, and hit the pillow hard, having been up since 3:30 am. A long, voltaic Valentine's Day indeed .