Welcome to the Year of the Tiger.

Since Michael was born in the year of the Tiger he's supposed to wear something red every day this year to keep bad luck away.  I'm considering sewing red tags into the back of all his shirts just to be on the safe side ;) ;)
My family (aka the Jarbh family -- my mom, my siblings, and their families) celebrated the Chinese New Year yesterday (with a dash of Valentine's day mixed in) at our monthly family gathering.  My oldest brother and his family have made some wonderful Chinese friends, spent quite a bit of time in China, and the parentals even take Chinese lessons (the language, that is) in anticipation of more visits there.  We have had a chance to include some of their friends in various family gatherings and have really come to appreciate the culture, the food, and the language.

Yesterday their house was all decked out in proper Chinese fashion.  We had some vegetables with a peanut dip of some sort which was really quite good.  Then there were dumplings (yum!) and a basket of assorted Chinese treats.  We also got to taste the exotic dragon fruit.  Surprisingly, the dragon fruit originally came from Mexico, but has acclimated well to Asian countries.  While beautiful, it actually doesn't have a lot of flavor.  Botanically speaking, it is the fruit of a cactus and also can grow as nearby as southern Utah!  I'm afraid I could never become too into Chinese food -- they're horribly devoid of chocolate in their desserts!  Actually desserts as a whole are pretty scant. For the purpose of this celebration, however, we did have hot chocolate with heart shaped marshmallows as well as a delicious chocolate / cream / raspberry dessert.  Delicious!!!

Since it was also Valentine's day yesterday there were a couple of activities to take that into account.  Since it's a household of teenage boys, they don't typically go gung-ho on the holiday ;)  The Chinese began wood block printing, which we had a chance to try.  Instead of carving actual wood blocks (time consuming and not the safest activity for the young'uns) there were styrofoam blocks to make impressions on with pencils.  Then they got a generous coating of paint and were printed onto paper.  Many of these ended up being valentine's themed :) 

Two other families got together earlier in the day and made cute woven heart shaped pouches for everyone with ribbon to make them into necklaces which were lots of fun.







My sister-in-law, Carol, read us a story about the Kitchen god and the beginning of candied melon which is a traditional treat shared at the New Year. 

During the evening, we learned how to sing the song "Love at Home" in Chinese.  The Chinese characters, with the Chinese words beneath each, were posted on the wall and we learned how to attempt each word.  Coming from a family who has mostly studied European languages, this was a bit tricky!  Since I'm still unable to sing, I took the opportunity to video the activity.

As a parting gift each child got a valentine from Grandma -- a traditional Red Envelope that contained a bit of money.  It's a Chinese New Year thing, but worked beautifully as a valentine also!  Each envelope also had a little note in it that said something great about the receiver.

When all is said and done... what's a Jarbh gathering without a little air-hockey :D