Happy Winter Solstice Festival

Shiver, Shiver, Shiver...soooooo cold recently in Taipei without the rains, but it's colder! Why? haha..I bet Dec. 22nd, 2006 is the coldest day of the your place too. As it is Winter Solstic Festival, which is an important day for Chinese. This day will have the shortest daylight, the longest night time, which means the Sun will need to work harder and harder from tomorrow to June, the Summer solstic day. In Chinese's thought, it is the good day to rest and build up a strong body! But, as you know Chinese is good at eating and cooking! Everything about the festival, all involved with some special food. Yeah~ for this special day, we could have red bean with sticky rice porridge, or won-ton hot soup, or a sticky rice ball soup, all depends on where you live. Taiwanese are used to have sticky rice ball soup for Winter Solstic Festival. We called this food 'tangyuan' in chinese, you can try to pronounce it. Chinese people need to stay together at this day to have 'tangyuan', which means families is going to have a good next year, almost as thanksgiving day in western world. I had it last weekend with my families. It was very sweet to have this kind of festival, especially at this cold weather~

Well...as i'm not good at history...I found out some history about the Winter Solstic online for you, sharing with you:
'The Winter Solstice became a festival during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and thrived in the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279). The Han people regarded Winter Solstice as a "Winter Festival", so officials would organize celebrating activities. On this day, both officials and common people would have a rest. The army was stationed in, frontier fortresses closed and business and traveling stopped. Relatives and friends presented to each other delicious food. In the Tang and Song dynasties, the Winter Solstice was a day to offer scarifies to Heaven and ancestors. Emperors would go to suburbs to worship the Heaven; while common people offered sacrifices to their deceased parents or other relatives. The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) even had the record that "Winter Solstice is as formal as the Spring Festival," showing the great importance attached to this day.'

Eyelid Twitching

Have you ever got the eyelid twitch? On which eye?

Chaco, who is my best friend in Taipei, told me that he lost money today and his left eyelid has twitched all day long. He was unhappy about that and keeping talking the old saying must be wrong. There's an old saying that "Eyelid twitching on the left may hint you that you'll earn more money recently; Eyelid twitching on the right may give you the hint that you might get disasters these days". Chaco was expecting to get more money at the beginning while his eyelid twitched on the left for he went to buy several lotteries that more than he was used to. As we all know that God didn't take him as the lucky guy on that day. I tried to comfort him that it might become true later these days.

I think most of people have this kind of experience "eyelid twitching". I had too. But, I was not that positive thought as Chaco. I always be serious about everything during those days for I took the sign as a hint for something might be out of control. Preventing things from bad to worse. And it usually went well for me.

There's a different opinion on medicine. If you didn't sleep well or work too hard which might overwork your eyes, you will be very easy to get the eyelid twitching. And you may get worst, if you're also on a diet. There's another special view of Chinese medicine that you might not have enough "chi", the power of body. I think they're almost the same to explain the reason why you get the eyelid twitching. And that will answer to the old saying. For your body is so tired, you may doing things improperly which would get you into trouble easily.

Hence you need to take more rests and vitamins when your eyelid starts to twitch. Or you could try the traditional way that Taiwanese do: Pinching the twitching eyelid lightly with your own saliva and say “lucky me” three times only. They said it is really helpful. Have you ever got the eyelid twitch? On which eye? You may take a try if you can endure the spit dried on your eyelid...

Happily Ever After

This weekend I attended one wedding and one engagement party in my hometown. They're all for my cousins, one is the son of my uncle from my father; the other is the son of my big aunt from my mother. Although it's modern times now, the weddings were still traditional types. Getting married in Taiwan needs to go through many rituals and expenses yet. Actually, it will cost a fortune.

Even though men in Taiwan no longer have to present large sums of money to their future wives' parents for giving the thanks, they have to pay money for the wedding. After proposal to his girlfriend, the man needs to ask his girlfriend's parents for permission to marry her. Then, the couple needs to prepare their engagement party first. In Taiwan, it's usually held in bride's hometown as a wedding, which will only invite the relatives and friends of the bride and only a few families of the groom. They need to take the wedding photographs as a very big photo album, which will spend them a lot of money that will including the wedding dresses, makeup and bouquet they need on the engagement party and the wedding day. Also they need to book a good restaurant after checking the number of the guests, which is a hard problem for the couple. In Taiwan, you need to decorate the restaurant by yourself, or you need to spend money to ask someone to help you out. Besides these, the couple has to buy wedding cookies for the bride's guests which usually go with the wedding invitation cards. This is another expense of the wedding.

At the engagement party in the bride’s home, all the elders of broom’s family has to take a seat in the bride's living room for the bride to treat each other a glass of tea which is the good beginning to greet the bride. Everyone needs to dry the glass of tea before the bride to get them back, and put a big red envelope in the glass. It's the sign for welcome the bride to become their family member. After that, the couple needs to put on each other's ring. In addition, their mothers also need to put a golden necklace on each other for giving the biggest blessings. This is main point of the engagement. Without this ritual, they're not really got married in traditional culture. And the engagement party will be held after the main point. It will be a great treat to give thanks everyone's greetings & helps. Before the banquet, each guest has to give the couple cash-filled red envelopes helps pay for the food.

The wedding usually will be held in groom's hometown, but will be easier than the engagement party. Usually having the wedding banquet for the guests and some will invite friends to say something for the couple. That is the sweetest time of the wedding I think. Even after all the rituals, the newlyweds will still face the expenses of a honeymoon. Not everyone could pay for all these bills at one time, it might need several years. Maybe it's because of these big expenses for a wedding; couples must try their best to keep the happiness in the marriage life ever after for there's no one could offer another wedding. By the way, there will be many arguments happened during the wedding planning. If you go through them all successfully, it really means you can have each other in your life forever…