Chinese New Year: Wrap-Up

As you could see from all the pictures, we had a wonderful, if belated, celebration of Chinese New Year at my in-laws' house in NYC this weekend.  Chinese New Year is actually, in part, a sacred, ritualized, private family holiday, with lots of prayers and food.  I've been celebrating with them now for several years  but learn new things each time (see here for my best description of the holiday).  This year, I realized:

• I have trouble praying on schedule.  We pray at the altar of the Buddha to present the food and then we pray with incense, approximately every 15 minutes, as the incense burns down by a third (at which point we add more incense and more sherry and tea), asking for luck, health, wealth, happiness, success, and all good things for the new year.  Anyway, I quietly recited some of my metta meditation but had trouble concentrating, and then finishing in the allotted schedule.  Also, while I've done some reading in Western Buddhism, in other words how it is generally interpreted and practiced here, even in its myriad guises (Zen, Tibetan, Theravadan), it is almost completely different when it is an actual Asian tradition (even though their version  is also Theravadan); the main difference is the praying to Buddha specifically, in the belief in numerous spiritual, celestial beings, that don't arise in the texts I've read.  Of course, Chinese New Year is also a Confucian ancestor ceremony.
• While Mama's family sets places for the ancestors, including Gong's grandfather and parents and Ma's mother (her father is in his 90s and doing well), this is unusual in that the woman's family is not generally included at all, but they wanted to acknowledge her.  Apparently, before Lao Ma's death, the seat was for Gong's father's childless first wife.  But apparently most recent deaths are more important.  Similarly, Ma's mother's paper money is in a separate basket from Gong's family money before we burn it.  The spirits don't mix and Ma doesn't want her mother to have to explain herself to Gong's ancestors. 
• The family's New Year table combines a few different traditions, including certain dishes from Cantonese tradition but also the platter of sweets which is a Teochew tradition.  The sweets are my favorite.
• Last night we ate the traditional Seven Vegetable Soup, on the seventh day of the New Year.  But Ma is not sure about the exact meaning of the soup. Each vegetable has a specific meaning but she doesn't know about the seventh day.  We laugh that it's to give you some vegetables after all the rich new year's sweets.