Today is Chinese New Year!

I knew that, but it sort of slipped my mind until a friend called to talk about it just now. In fact I feel I sort of celebrated with my Chinese friends on Sunday evening.

You see, I'm part of an ESL (English as a Second Language) Class out of our church. COVID has meant that instead of meeting at church during the Sunday School hour, our class meets on Sunday evening via Zoom. In fact, we have two classes; a beginner class for those who know almost no English at all, so they have a translator, and the Advanced class for those who have studied English, but feel their conversational English could use considerable improvement.

Our Advanced Class has anywhere from 32 to 36 and occassionally more people on the screen on Sunday evenings. After our Grammar lesson, we are separated into Breakout rooms where I have 1-3 students who then practice the Grammar lesson and I am there to encourage, or correct them as needed, and we often get to having informal chatter together as we tell one another about our lives.

However, our leaders (some of whom are Chinese) were well aware that Feb. 1st is the Chinese New Year's Day. So the program was adjusted a bit. Especially, as we could not have our Annual Dumpling Party and Potluck this year again.

I recall the first year we had such a Dumpling Party &potluck we had about 200 people show up as the Chinese students brought their children, friends and relatives! The students had been in the church kitchen since 3 pm making thousands of dumplings. Then when we were about to go home, we, (the Language helpers) were each given a bag full of dumplings to take home!

Well, this past Sunday, the program went like this; two of us helpers were paired together and our students combined to form groups of 4 or 5 students. We as helpers were to work with our students to have them each do a short presentation on some aspect of a traditional Chinese New Year Celebration. Then we went back to the main meeting group and each smaller group made their presentations. This gave us Canadians a nice overview of how they are used to celebrating, starting the night before with major fireworks, and a TV Gala that lasts 4 hours and features musical programs, comedies, dramas, etc. Oh yes, and they have a big family meal together, with many dishes. A feast really. The first day is for visiting and enjoying your own family. The second day is for going to visit your grandparents, the third day is for visiting your uncles and aunts and cousins, and so on. The holiday can last a whole week for some families!

Oh, and the children each get a red envelop with money in it. They really look forward to that!

However, a little after 4 pm I had a phone call from Sandy one of my regular students, and she wanted to check whether I had any food Looking for a Certain Relative?allergies. When I assured her I did not, she said they would be around at 4:30 to bring me some dumplings.

Sure enough in a few minutes they (Sandy and one of her teens) were at my door with a container of still warm dumplings. Plus a large ziplock bag with about 2-3 dozen frozen dumplings. And, a carton of large juicy oranges. The box does not indicate the weight, but I guessed about 5 lbs.

I tried to invite them inside, but they insisted that they were not to come in.

I had just had a bit of supper with some ribs I'd cooked all evening in my crockpot, but naturally, I could not resist warming a small plate of dumplings in the mircrowave, and then slicing up an orange into wedges and then sucking the delicious juice of each wedge.

Guess what; I will have some more dumplings today, and imagine I'm eating them with a friend who phoned this morning to remind me of this holiday.

You are welcome to join us in your imagination too.

[Back to Archives Index ] ~~ [Back to Main RoseBouquet Page]