Celebrating Lunar New Year in Taiwan
In the midst of all the uncertainty about the coronavirus and the future of our semester, we had the opportunity to celebrate the Lunar New Year with local Taiwanese families in Yilan County, Taiwan. We spent three days staying with our host families and participating in and learning about all of their traditions. It was truly a highlight of my time in Taiwan.
Our two weeks in Taiwan were organized by one of our professors, Dale, and his wife Fifi. My classmate, Melissa, and I really lucked out by getting to stay with Fifi’s parents and celebrating the holiday with our professor and his in-laws. Here’s a look at our lovely Lunar New Year experience.
New Year’s Eve Dinner
This dinner is just like a Christmas Eve dinner, with the extended family gathering to eat a huge spread of delicious food. Fifi’s dad even raised a duck especially for this occasion. Family members from ages three to sixty-something dug into the food and chatted over the meal – I couldn’t follow much of the Mandarin, but it was nice to be able to share a meal with our host family and be part of our first Lunar New Year tradition.
Having Lunar New Year’s Eve dinner with Fifi’s family
Our Lunar New Year’s Eve dinner spread
The duck that Fifi’s dad raised for this dinner
Melissa and I at dinner with our professor and his wife
Hong Baos
A very important Lunar New Year tradition is giving hong baos, or red envelopes, to family members. These envelopes are filled with cash and given to everyone, from parents to nieces and nephews. The recipient of the hong bao typically gives phrases of well wishes for the new year to the person giving the envelope. Our professor surprised Melissa and I each with a hong bao with 200 Taiwan dollars (roughly $7), and challenged us to come up with a phrase in Mandarin to wish him well for the year. Let’s just say our Mandarin skills are a bit lacking, and that Dale didn’t quite get great wishes from us in Chinese.
Melissa and I with our hong baos
Buying Lottery Tickets
Every year after the big New Year’s Eve dinner, the family walks down the street to the lottery shop to buy lottery tickets. They got super into it, having even the littlest family members scratch off tickets. My professor kindly bought Melissa and I each a ticket, and I won 500 Taiwan dollars! That’s about the equivalent of about $17, so it was a really nice bonus!
Out with the family scratching off lottery tickets
Me with my winning ticket
Learning to Play Mahjong
For me, Mahjong inspires images of four older Chinese women gathered around a square table ruthlessly playing the game – shifting tiles every which way and being as sly and skillful as possible. It is such an iconic game in Chinese culture, and I was definitely excited to learn how to play. Dale taught Melissa and I and his two step-kids to play late on New Year’s Eve. His step-kids are our age, but as they didn’t speak much English and Melissa and I don’t speak much Mandarin, Dale had the challenge of teaching us in both languages. It was slow going at first, and we definitely did not play all of the rounds of the super long game, but I’m glad I was able to walk away with an understanding of how to play Mahjong.
Mahjong tiles from the set we used to learn how to play
Visiting Temples
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, we set out to visit a couple temples. Our first stop was the Fifi and Dale’s regular temple, which was insanely crowded because the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-Wen, was due to make a visit.
Sure enough, a couple minutes after we got up to the temple, she arrived in a caravan of black Land Rovers and made her way to the central room of the temple to pray. The massive crowds clamored for a glimpse of her, holding their phones high in the air to try and catch her on camera. After saying her prayers, she headed off to a side room to give out official presidential hong baos that people had lined up for quite some time to receive. Dale’s step-daughter sneakily and craftily wormed her way up to the front of the line to snag one of the coveted envelopes that had a single Taiwan dollar ($0.033) in it. It’s not about the money, but rather the auspicious start to the New Year marked by being handed a hong bao directly from the President.
The official presidential hong bao
As Tsai Ing-Wen handed out her hong baos, we made our way around the temple to the different altars, holding our incense sticks and watching as temple goers kicked off their new year with prayers.
The first temple we visited on the first day of the Lunar New Year
After leaving the first temple, we headed to another to have some ‘peace porridge.’ This is a soup with rice and other yummy bits in it that people gather and eat together. Visitors to the temple serve themselves the porridge out of huge pots set up on long tables. The porridge was really hearty and delicious, and yet another marker of a favorable start to the new year.
Peace porridge that we tried at a local temple
Trying Lots of Snacks
One of my favorite parts of holidays is all the food – candy on Halloween, turkey for Thanksgiving, and so many yummy snacks for Lunar New Year. We ate a lot of food over those three days, but I especially loved the peace porridge, a grass jelly soup-like dessert filled with taro balls and red beans, and a peanut ice cream wrap.
The peanut ice cream wrap was my absolute favorite – it is a flour crepe filled with ice cream, peanut candy shavings, and cilantro. My professor got me one to try while we were temple hopping, and I had several more when we got back to Taipei.
A hot grass jelly soup dessert filled with lots of yummy stuff
A peanut ice cream wrap
Hot Pot Dinner
The third day of the Lunar New Year is traditionally when daughters visit their side of the family after spending the other days with their husband’s families. On the night of that third day, we had hot pot dinner with Fifi’s family, this time with her sister and her husband and children as well.
Hot pot is a typical meal well-loved by most Chinese and Taiwanese people. I also really love hot pot meals. It’s delicious and a lot of fun to cook your food with the whole family or a large group of friends. You simply use your chopsticks to dunk your meat, veggies, and such in a large pot of boiling broth. Most hot pot restaurants also have sauce bars to mix your own sauces and serve white rice or noodles to have with the food cooked in the pot.
Walking to hot pot dinner with Fifi’s mom
The hot pot
Fireworks
After our hot pot dinner, we headed out with many of Fifi’s family members to set off fireworks and play with sparklers. This element of Lunar New Year celebrations really made the holiday feel like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and the 4th of July all rolled into one. We had a great time running around with the kids swirling sparklers around.
Melissa and I playing with sparklers on the third day of the Lunar New Year
Melissa and I playing with sparklers on the third day of the Lunar New Year
The next day, we met back up with all of our classmates and got to hear about the fantastic experiences they had with their families. Everyone walked away with a uniquely lovely Lunar New Year experience that we’ll be able to talk about for years. I arrived at my host family’s house knowing next to nothing about the Lunar New Year holiday, and left well versed in the traditions involved in the yearly celebration. It was so much fun, and I am incredibly thankful to Dale and Fifi for setting up the experience, and for all of the host families that welcomed a bunch of American kids into their families for their biggest holiday of the year!
新年快乐! Happy New Year!