Goodbye Rooster, Hello Dog

新年好! Xīnnián hǎo! Happy New Year!

While Taiwan officially follows the Minguo calendar (which is basically the Gregorian calendar but with a different numbering of years to reflect the year ROC/Taiwan was founded), the Chinese lunisolar calendar plays an important role in the determination of holidays in Taiwan.

The first day of the lunar year is based around the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox – in other words, the new moon that falls between, like, January 20th and February 20th is when the new lunar year begins. In 2018, that date is February 16.

tl;dr: Chinese New Year is coming. Like, tomorrow.

I’ve been learning a lot about the culture and traditions surrounding Chinese New Year (NB: although many argue that the proper name to use in Taiwan is Lunar New Year, most locals I’ve spoken with refer to it as Chinese New Year). Its equivalent in the US would be like if you took Thanksgiving, Christmas, Pesach, Eid-Al Fitr, Rosh Hashana, and New Years and rolled it all into one five-day-long official holiday and two-week-long festival. There are gifts of money given to children in red envelopes, new outfits purchased and worn, dumplings eaten, and family visited and dined with for a big ‘reunion dinner,’ similar to an American Thanksgiving dinner.

Since Adam and I don’t know many Taiwanese families yet, we’re sitting this CNY out. But that didn’t stop me from going to visit the absolutely enormous Dihua Street Market to witness the madness of preparation shopping.

Enjoy!

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SEEN: people, stalls in front of shops, food, paper lanterns, vendors with microphones

SEEN: Selling peanuts, licorice watermelon seeds, and others out of enormous sacks

SEEN: Dozens of hanging decorations for sale, featuring pineapples, dogs, and other symbols

SEEN: Down the middle of the market, facing the opposite direction

SEEN: Knives for sale, just hanging out on a table

EATEN: It was either this or stinky tofu on a stick, and I’m not at that level yet.