Welcome to the Year of the Monkey. We are at the start of Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year. Twelve animals represent the years in the Chinese tradition, and each animal comes around every twelve years. And just as the weekend culmination of Carnevale snuck up on me yesterday, so has Lunar New Year. Each year I think to myself, Seth and I are going to stop in at Joy Noodles in West Palm Beach; we’re going to sit down with Joy and get the details on this fascinating holiday. Joy is from Thailand but she is of Chinese descent, and I know I can learn a lot from her. But we go, we eat our noodles, we order the special mochi that she makes for dessert during the New Year and Joy is always so busy, it’s impossible to get her to sit down. And so I still don’t know much about Chinese New Year.
What I know is the New Year celebration begins in earnest today, and it goes on for many days, and there are different facets to it. Some days are meant to be more family oriented, some more public. And since it has snuck up on me, I hope our friend Shin Yu Pai won’t mind me using her imagery again. She shot this photograph at Lantern Festival, which is part of the Lunar New Year festivities. Shin Yu is a wonderful poet; we got to work with her on a book of poetry called Works on Paper (Convivio Bookworks, 2007). We completed the work on that book during Lunar New Year, in fact. It was the Year of the Boar.
Here’s a link you can click on:
Lantern Festival by Shin Yu Pai
I am no tech wiz, so all I will tell you is this: If you click on it, you will download a 6-second video that Shin Yu shot during that same Lantern Festival. It’s a joyful six seconds. And that’s what I wish for you and all of us: Joy. (Huh. I just realized that has been a constant theme throughout this writing. I love when that happens.) Happy New Year.