New Year - The Sequel

One of the perks of being Asian-American is having two new years to celebrate. The first involves partying with friends, drinking champagne, and making a lot of noise at midnight. The second involves eating with relatives, eating with more relatives, and making a lot of noise for two weeks straight. The latter doesn’t always go over well with the crowd who celebrates only the former. Who we eat with doesn’t seem to bother anyone, but explosives in the streets tend to make folks jumpy. While the Asians run outside to see where the party is, our neighbors lock their doors, drop to the floor and take cover. It’s a weird culture clash. But we’ve been living together like this for nearly 200 years. You’d think we’d all be used to it by now.


The Chinese have so many superstitions that chances are you’ll eventually do something to ruin your life. Here are a few that relate to the New Year:


- On New Year’s Day don't sweep the floors (good luck will be swept away) or wash your hair (good luck will be washed away) or use knives (good luck will be cut away)… you get the picture. So take care of all your housecleaning, personal grooming, and food prep on New Year’s Eve, or you’ll be SOL all year.

- The color red will bring you luck. If you notice that many of your Silicon Valley colleagues are dressed in red around this time of year and you’re not, don’t worry, you didn’t miss a memo. On the other hand, white is associated with death. So with all those brides traipsing around in white wedding gowns, it's no wonder that half the marriages in this country are doomed.


- Any bad behavior you exhibit on New Year’s Day will haunt you all year long. Or until you die, whichever comes first. Chinese parents are especially fond of this one, as it gives them free license to torment their children. “Don’t eat sweets today, or you’ll eat so much all year that your teeth will fall out.” “Don’t be lazy today, or you’ll end up a helpless lump on the floor.” “Don’t talk back to me today, or I’ll wring your little neck.” Those little old ladies in Chinatown may look perfectly harmless, but they can mess with your mind like nobody’s business.


Every Lunar New Year married people give red envelopes filled with money to children and unmarried people. I don’t know who started this tradition, but he must have been a bachelor. Unmarried domestic partners have been playing the system for years. I’m pretty sure all those red envelopes are funding their retirement. I'm willing to bet that married Chinese couples retire later and in more poverty than unmarried couples. I think I’m onto something here.


2012 is the Year of the Dragon. Brace yourself for a year of excitement, intensity, and unpredictability. Not to mention the Mayan Armageddon. I’m not sure I can handle all that drama. I’ll just lay low and wear a lot of red until it all blows over.

New Year

Every New Year’s Eve we gather with friends at Sam and Laurel’s house in Point Reyes Station. D and I cram the car with a ridiculous amount of food and clothing and then toss in the dog and his bed. We spend the first two hours on monotonous multi-lane highways, but as we approach the coastline and begin cruising along winding roads through the redwoods, the weight of the harvest lifts from my shoulders. Whatever’s waiting back home at the orchard can continue to wait. The sky is clearer. The air is crisper. Radio programs are reduced to static and my cell phone signal takes a slow-motion dive. Three… two… one… and finally, No Service. This is a good thing for a change.


The car door opens and the dog explodes from the cargo compartment. This is a familiar and happy place for him, too. From the driveway we step into the backyard, where we’ve seen songbirds, quail, deer, and even a bobcat. Redtail hawks and eagles perch in the grove of trees close by. To top it off, the grounds offer a front row seat to a spectacular overlook of the marshy headwaters of Tomales Bay.

By 1:00 the table was spread with appetizers, oysters were ready for shucking, and the wine was flowing. At that rate I could slip into a food coma well before dinnertime rolled around. But with my comrades as inspiration, I carried on like a good soldier. The group is an interesting and well-traveled one, and it’s never short on good stories. We’ve heard tales of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, meeting with Manuel Noriega, building an ice rink in Washington DC, leading tours in Australia, tracking rhinos in Kenya, living in a commune, living in a kibbutz, living under Fidel Castro’s rule. Before you know it, you’ve chatted and listened and eaten your way through the afternoon, and then it’s time for another meal.

After a hearty dinner that rounded me up, literally, to 3000 calories since breakfast, we toasted each other at the stroke of midnight. Midnight in New York, that is. We wanted the option of retiring early without embarrassing anyone. But Lydia, bless her heart, pumped up the Latin dance tunes and we salsad and merengued ourselves right into 2012 Pacific Standard Time. And I'm so glad we were able to ring in another year together. 

Happy new year, everyone.