Chinese New Year's Eve

Chinese New Year's is the biggest and most important holiday of the year in Taiwan. Workers there only get one day of vacation for holidays like Christmas, but they get five full days for Chinese New Year's -- the longest break of the year. During the holiday, it's traditional for everyone to return home and spend time with their extended families. This obviously causes a lot of chaos and traffic, as people all pack onto the deadlocked highways at the same time. Luckily, the net effect on the city of Taipei is good; things are actually calmer, because most people have departed for the southern parts of the island.

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial (a.k.a. Democracy Memorial)

So it was a quiet day when we visited the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial. My older cousin, An An, first took us to get some breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall shop serving typical breakfast foods such as egg pancakes (dan bing), warm sweetened soy milk (dou jiang), and something called "shao bing you tiao," which roughly translates to "hot pancake with grease stick". Soooooo yummy. With a name like that, how could it not be awesome? An An had also wanted to get us shaved ice with strawberries (mmmm), but most stores turned out to be closed for Chinese New Year's Eve.

In fact, even the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial was closed, but the only thing we actually missed was the statue of Chiang Kai-Shek. The rest of the the courtyard, gardens, and memorial were free for the wandering.

Things to note about this picture:

• The little brown sign on the memorial (in the center, underneath the roof), reads "Democracy Memorial" as opposed to its former, more well-known name, "Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial".
• The green and white tarp in front of the door (parallel to the stairway) covers up the carving of a sun -- the official symbol of Taiwan and the KMT.

The reason for this (according to my relatives) is that Chen Shui-Bian, the current Taiwan president, is the leader of the party that defeated the long-ruling KMT. Throughout his presidency, he has apparently done all sorts of crazy unpopular things (making noise about declaring independence from China, for one). But in recent years, his approval rating has been so low that he can't accomplish anything that actually matters, so he goes around renaming historical monuments and streets around Taipei. Yes, think freedom fries. And yes, also think George W. Bush.

I actually thought it was hilarious how many parallels we could draw between Chen Shui-Bian and George W. Bush.

• They both tried to provoke unnecessary wars (one of them was successful).
• They are both hated by the "educated elite" of the north, but supported by the (ahem) "rural southern hicks".
  
• They both inspire vile epithets anytime you ask "so, do you think he's a good president?"
• They have both been in office for 8 years.
  
• They will both be gone soon.

Seriously, whenever I brought up this topic of conversation, the furious bashing would begin anew. "He's SUCH an idiot." "Thank God he's leaving soon!" "His name is so stupid sounding." It was almost like being at home. :-)

Okay I'm done talking politics now. Next, we fed the big fat koi in the gardens.

Chris also bought an asparagus soft drink. Yes you heard right. Asparagus. From a vending machine.


Learning to Play Mahjong

Tired of being cold and wet, we soon headed back to Lao Lao's (my maternal grandmother's) house. Traditionally speaking, we're supposed to spend New Year's Eve with the father's side of the family, but I have lots more cousins on my mom's side, and we thought it would be more fun to hang out with them. (More on the traditions later.)

When we arrived, we found my relatives sitting around a table and playing a game of Chinese Mahjong. (Note that I'm NOT talking about those weird single-player games online that are also somehow called Mahjong.) The spirit of this game is much like poker, with my aunts and uncles and grandparents exchanging some small bets each round. The game-play is also similar in the sense that there's some element of both strategy and luck. Mahjong finally motivated Chris to learn to read some Chinese characters too! It's a really fun game. Too bad we don't have enough friends to play with here. :-(

Evening Celebrations

For dinner, we had a couple more special foods:

• Nian gao (year cake?). This is a sticky rice cake, with the same texture as the outsides of mochis. Except there was also red bean paste mixed in with the rice paste, and it was all fried with a bit of egg. Apparently the "gao" also means "high," symbolizing a year to reach new heights.
• Soup with a special name I don't remember. It was something about how it smelled SO delicious that vegetarian monks came jumping out over the walls of their temple to eat some. (And it's not a vegetarian soup.) Chris and I were a little taken aback by the texture of the sea cucumbers in there...but otherwise it was good!

And now, we stay up until midnight and celebrate New Year's Eve!! Right? Right?

Nope.

Turns out that some of us (Chris, me, and my cousins An An and Shuen Shuen) had to leave around 10 or 11 p.m. But my other several cousins could stay. Trying to pick out the pattern, I was like, "uh, why us?" Answer: Because we were the children of the girls of the family, and our presence at our maternal family's New Year's celebration would bring bad luck. So we missed out on the making of the traditional dumplings, and took the MRT back to the hotel. Interesting, isn't it? I had no idea that these traditional rules were so strict! But that's okay. We saw some pretty cool fireworks from our 17th-floor window. :-)