Gong xi fa cai! Celebrating Chinese New Year in Labrador
Leaving the Year of the Pig, the Chinese calendar now enters the Year of the Rat.
With almost 1.4 billion people getting ready to celebrate Chinese New Year in China on Saturday, one family from Happy Valley-Goose Bay is preparing a celebration of their own.
"It's a big deal in the culture," Joyce Law told CBC Labrador Morning. "I'd like my children to be familiar with kind of where my parents or their grandparents and their ancestors … where they came from."
Law calls herself "one of the few Chinese residents of Goose Bay." She said her mother, who lives in Toronto, has taught her a lot about the holiday over the years.
"It's very much like Christmas. Christmas or any kind of big family celebration," Law said. "Lots of food, lots of traditional, kind of symbolic foods at New Years. Gifts, there's a lot of red and gold, as those are lucky colours in the culture. There's a lot of decor. In big cities where there's a larger Chinese population you'll see it."
Leaving the Year of the Pig, the Chinese calendar now enters the Year of the Rat. The rat is the first animal of the Chinese zodiac, representing wealth, surplus, and the beginning of a new day.
Food is often a key point of celebration during Chinese New Year. Law said the different foods eaten are symbolic of fortunes in the coming year.
"Noodles are long, and they symbolize long life," Law said. "Dumplings are symbolic for kind of little, I guess, little packets of gold or wealth."
"Traditionally a whole fish is eaten," Law added. "Whenever we've eaten it for Chinese New Year's, [my mother] always told us not to finish it. 'Cause I guess the idea is you want to have an excess of things. So if you finish your fish that means you'll run out of money or run out of your good health and fortune. So when we have enjoyed the meal she's always cut us off."
Throughout the day, people share greetings of peace and prosperity. Law has taught children two greetings. The first is Xīnnián kuàilè, pronounced sheen-neean-kwai-luh, meaning "happy new year."
Another common greeting used is gong xi fa cai, pronounced gong-zee-fah-tsai. This is a common wishing of prosperity, literally translating to "wishing you enlarge your wealth."
Shopping for ingredients now easier
Law says finding Asian ingredients in Labrador has become easier over the last 10 years.
"Before I couldn't find ginger here or even a lot of the different types of Asian vegetables. But now there is a lot of ginger, a lot of garlic," Law said. "The other day I found Asian eggplants at the co-op so we'll have a lot of that.
"There are certain things that I bring in from Toronto, these shiitake mushrooms come from Toronto and some of the spices.... It's not too bad."
With files from Rebecca Martel and CBC Labrador Morning