Life, Day by Day

photo taken from the Facebook page Celebrate the Chinese New Year at Vikings and enjoy their promo for those born in the Year of the Monkey. I am a Fire Monkey and this is my year!

Chinese New Year will be on February 8, 2016, the start of the Year of the Fire (Red) Monkey.  I am not superstitious and don't really believe in fortune-telling, but I am open to all suggestions since I was born in a monkey year .  Not many people or places celebrate Chinese New Year but in the Philippines, it is a public holiday.  Most Chinese-Filipino communities in other parts of the country have some sort of celebration, whether big or small.  Here are some ways to welcome the Year of the Fire Monkey in Bacolod City and the Province of Negros Occidental:

source I am not a fan of any kind of astrology or fortune telling so it is no surprise that I was not aware that 2016 is the Year of the Monkey.  When someone told me, I shrugged and promptly put it out of my mind.  But with the upcoming Chinese New year celebrations and many social media posts about it, I learned that not only is 2016 a monkey year but it is that of a fire/red monkey , an element-sign combination that recurs every 60 years, the last time was in 1956, the year I was born.  Yes, dear readers, I am turning 60 this year. And so I thought, hey, maybe it would be interesting to find out more about my Chinese Zodiac Monkey.

Like I said in my previous post , this is my first time ever to attend the Bacolaodiat Festival .  When the festival committee sent the Negrense Blogging Society, Inc. an invitation to attend and cover the activities (February 7-10, 2013), I immediately sent out the call to our board and other Negros bloggers.  After getting our press kits, I was supposed to meet up with 2 other bloggers to watch the dazzling dance parade, lantern street dance competition, the cultural show and then dinner at the chopstick's alley.  Unfortunately, I was not able to watch the parade (could not get off work) and so, I am still waiting for the pictures that one of our other board member took.  Here are some pictures from last year which I took from their website.

Well, that's what the Chinese Year of the Snake 2013 forecast says for a monkey like me, heheheh. Thus, this is the reason for the change of color of my blog, although I'm not superstitious (okay, maybe a teeny, weeny bit).  Besides, I love the color purple. Now if it said green or yellow, that would be a totally different story because those are not my colors at all!  The monkey's other lucky colors aside from purple, are pink and white both of which are fine with me since my little girl loves pink and I like white.   But it also says that our lucky stone is peridot, which is confusing because being April born, my birthstone is diamond.  Peridot is green (yuck) and diamonds are a girl's best friend! No contest! Snakes are not cute like monkeys (wink, wink)...but the one above is the closest one I found to being one ;) To one and all...HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

What greeting do you say for the Chinese New Year?  I first knew that there was a Chinese New Year when I went to Hongkong in the late 90's.  Feeling sick the first day I was there, I stayed in our hotel room and watched TV. One program was teaching viewers how to say Chinese phrases. And so, that's how I learned (and never forgot) the greeting of Kung Hei Fat Choi.  I did not know then that this was in the Cantonese dialect, the one mainly used in Hongkong, Guangdong and Macao among the many dialects in China. Back then, I thought it was the only new year greeting in Chinese. Hey, don't blame me...the only Chinese left in me is my lineage. It was only recently that I learned that in the Philippines and Bacolod in particular, most of the Filipino-Chinese come from Fujian province where the dialect is Fookien (Hokkien).  And so, we should actually say, Kiong Hee Huat Tsai when we greet them for the New Year.  As for China's official language Mandarin, it is Gong Xi Fa