Welcome to the year of the Tiger!

ROAR! Well, Chinese New Year has been and gone and left us with a FFFFreezing Year of the Tiger! I’m sitting here with ice cold hands trying to type and poor Calypso is hiding underneath her blanket.

Hong Kong certainly isn’t built for the cold.

The new year was welcomed in Hong Kong style with fireworks and street carnivals galore! We could feel the vibration of the fireworks where we live though we chose to stay indoors due to the cold. Yesterday we did brave it outside with Calypso and went for an exploratory walk through the neighbourhood. Not many shops were open and people were scarse. Some ventured out in search of a restaurant or cafe that was open. Chinese New Year can almost be compared to Christmas for westerners. Families get together and spend the time eating, playing majjong and exchanging red pockets. These red pockets are usually handed to younger or unmarried members of the family and contain money for the older ones and chocolate coins for the younger ones. The money should be crisp new notes, with only one fold in it. Its also good luck to give 2 red pockets for example $80 in each. Banks issue new notes especially for CNY and will ask if you want CNY notes or normal notes.

Examples of some red pockets

Some stores or restaurants hand out red pockets with discount vouchers in them. Since we are married, we didn’t receive any red pockets but did give one to Josephine, Morne’s employee. Being both unmarried and his employee, we had to give her one. You are also expected to give a red pocket to the guard at your building and your domestic helper.

Red is a lucky colour and so decorations everywhere are red:

We also went down to Victoria Park on Friday evening. The park hosts a massive market just before CNY year and you can buy all sorts of decorations and flowers. The  chinese believe that flowers in the home on CNY symbolizes rebirth and growth. Different flowers have different meanings. There are flowers for newly weds or lovers to ensure a happy relationship, flowers for luck or wealth, whatever you may wish for in the new year. Tangerine plants are also every where with tiny little tangerines all over. They symbolize happiness and the more fruit the better!  At the market, shoppers were laden with flowers and tangerine bushes and the sheer amount of flowers available was jaw dropping! Everything you could think of, including beautiful orchids (the bigger the flower the better), lilies and even Stralitzia! There were WAY too many people and so we headed for dessert rather. Dessert in Hong Kong is eaten seperate from the main meal and you go to a dessert shop especially. These only serve chinese style desserts and are always bustling and noisy! You can immediately forget about seeing chocolate mousse or ice cream on the menu! Here, desserts are of the natural and healthy variety. For example, a typical dessert menu would include:

Mango sago – exactly what is says. Mango flavour safo with sliced mango

Mango sago

Sesame soup which is cold

Sesame soup

 Coconut grass jelly – the white base is coconut and comes with jelly made from a plant base. The plant base can be anything like crysanthenum or tea.

Coconut grass jelly

And my personal favourite, hot dried bean curd with egg white.

On Friday, I had banana beancurd dessert. Yummy!! So as you can see, no chocolate,  caramel or sugar anywhere! You can often get bubble tea here too. This is also a favourite of mine!

We were also given a water chestnut cake from Josephine’s mum as part of chinese new year. This is a gelatenous cake, see through with bits of sweet water chestnut in it. You pan fry it until it is slightly crispy on the outside and soft and jelly-like on the inside. The whole cake is made of watrer chestnut, even the jelly flour. Really good! Even Calypso had a try and liked it!

Water chestnut cake

And now, with CNY over and everyone saying Kung Hei Fat Choi ( a prosperous new year), we start our next 6 months in Hong Kong.

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