to remember Hokkien at the moment and the only other one would be the Cantonese. Will check with DH later in the week.

BTW... you should really clean on Saturday which is the last day of the old year. Otherwise you are sweeping away the new year's good fortune instead of the old year's bad fortune. The night before is also the time for the Reunion dinner which is the highlight of CNY really. Family all tries to get together, no matter what, for this meal (that includes us flying 8000miles for a meal I can't even stand!). The meal itself is 'steamboat' or 'huo guo' which is basically a steaming bowl of stock into which various pieces of meat, seafood and vegetables are thrown to cook at the table. Each person uses their chopsticks or a small wire net scoop thingy to take out food for themselves. Of course many of the foods are traditional and symbolic, includng that disgusting black seaweedy hair stuff.

Dammit - my brain shutdown. Can't remember names for anything tonight. Many of the foods, like many Chinese traditions, are homonyms for some lucky phrase. They might mean sea cucumber in English but in Mandarin it might be prosperity or long life or... something. Pineapples are a big thing too - that's good fortune. In Singapore that means we've taken a Nonya (mix of Malay and Chinese cuisine) pineapple tart and made it a CNY tradition! Plenty of gambling at New Year too - we all play Blackjack (even my MIL who despises gambling the rest of the year) - except we usually play mostly in Hokkien, which is where most of my Hokkien comes from!

I like the card playing part of CNY best really because all my husband's brothers and sister really get chance to spend time together and one of my other SILs too. The last is thick as pig-shit and can't count high enough!! Oh yes, new clothes for the first day is another tradition. Everything new - some people have their whole houses renovated for CNY!! Did I mention the Chinese are crazy!?!?!

Lots of relative visiting on the first and second day (which is exactly what the days translate as), then one can visit friends.

I sort of dread it most years but it's also kind of fun. Much like Christmas I guess. My MIL has been tricked into letting go of doing all the cooking for steamboat and the other umpteen dishes she prepares (not supposed to cook or handle knives on the first day I seem to recall). We've often gone on holiday for a few days over CNY in recent years because she wouldn't let the work go to anyone else but was really not able to do it all herself. I think she might have liked me to be able to do it in some ways.

I'm quite glad we're going back now because you've kind of made me 2nd-homesick!!

Kerri.