Prepping and Practicing (or, White Girls Can't Speak Mandarin)

I practiced some of my Mandarin today at our local Asian grocery.

"Xing jia yu-ie!" I said to the cashier in my best Chow Gou.

She replied in Cantonese: "Gung hay fat choi!"

And then added, "Xin Nian Kuai Le!" And I'm not sure what that is, Mandarin, perhaps.

And then Sis added, "Xing nian hao!"

See, there are several ways to wish someone a happy new year. You can wish "happy new year" or "good health" or "have a prosperous new year"--any combination of health, wealth, happiness, longevity, or similar good wishes--just think of all the ways you can sign a Christmas card these days and multiple it by, well, how many dialects of Chinese are there? (One website says 1500 recorded ones).

Then we started talking about red envelopes, or ang bao. We're trying to teach the kids the rhyme they should say:

"Xing jia yu-ie
Xing nih huac chai
Ang bao tua tua gai." (approximately)

This is basically "Happy New Year! Good health! Let the red envelope be a big one."

The cashier had her own rhyme in Cantonese but neither Mama nor I caught it.

Of course, you want that to be a big envelope because it contains money, often a multiple of your age. Which is not what you think it is. For the Chinese, you are one year old the minute you are born and then you turn two on your first new year (even if it isn't a year away). They don't really celebrate birthdays per se. New Year's is the big celebration and it lasts, all told, for a few weeks. The kids are going to be 5. Oh my gosh, I just realized I'm 40!!!! Not that it matters in China, because the first significant birthday is, I believe, 65 or so. Aging is a good thing.

We actually didn't buy anything in the way of traditional New Year's foods; Ma and Gong will get all of that this week. We restocked Mama's sauce supply and got two boxes of Pocky for the kids (yes, yes, I know, that's Japanese--but we are severely curtailing what we will buy food-wise that is actually made in China, excluding anything with dairy). We also got some red and gold decorations, including four little lanterns and decoration for the front door with numerous symbols (ancient money, coins, firecrackers, bamboo, even happy cats, and some calligraphic new year's wishes--if some is good, more is better, and too much is best).

And of course, several ang bao.