Year of Dragon

One of the most auspicious Chinese signs will be celebrated today, today is Chinese New Year! 

May the Dragon bring you strength, good healthy, good fortune and may all your wishes come true.

Festival of light - Loy Krathong

On 10 December the full moon will fill up the nightly sky. For Thai people this will be the sign to celebrate their cherished festival of Loy Krathong, also know as the festival of light.

Here are some pics for the festival last year.

Belgian chocolate mooncake

Tomorrow is the Chinese festival of Mid-Autumn festival. Traditionally people from Chinese origin will watch the full moon and will remember the legend of Houyi and Chang'e while eating mooncakes. These mooncakes have become favourite family and business gifts months before the full moon of the festival. So it's not unusual to see different companies create their own mooncake, packed in a nice box. So do the Belgian chocolate companies Leonidas and Godiva. Clever marketing move!



Korean Mud festival

Summertime is festivaltime! Towers of beer, cool rockbands and thunderstorms transforming the plains in huge mudbaths. Well remove the cool rockbands and imagine a whole lot of mud, mud slides, muds swimming pools, mud wrestling, ... and you will get one of the most popular festivals in Korea: The Boryeong Mud festival!

It is an amazing international festival organised in summer, 16 to 24 July for 2011, which finds its origin in promoting cosmetic products. Who said you had to suffer to be beautiful?

Snow festival

The Yearly Sapporo Snow festival is back!
This year from 7 February to 13 February the most important matsuri (festival) of Hokkaido will take place.
About 2 million visitors will gather to Sapporo to participate in the 62st edition of the festival.
Snow was brought from 600 trucks and 250 different images and structures are made.

Funeral in style

In Sout-East Asia Buddhism and Chinese beliefs dominate the religious thinking. So when "Nirvana Memorial" planned to build a luxury columbarium in Singapore, they did it in style.
According to Chinese traditions a deceased should be buried in one piece and commemorating ceremonies should be held at least twice a year. Singapore has a limited land space so cremations are generally performed.
In the brand new Nirvana Memorial Garden columbarium, called a "6 star" columbarium, everything is possible.
The urn of the deceased are placed in golden platted walls. Ceremonies are held without the presence of monks but with light- and sound shows and speaking Buddha statues.
Gloomy, dark and depressing funeral places for your beloved ones are the past, this is the future.

But it comes with a price tag;
A Royal double niche would be price around 22.000 $ and Family suite (32 urns) comes for 93.000 $. The "economy" class niche starts at 2.200$.

 

Congratulations China

1 October 2009 it might be remembered as a sad day in most places of Asia. Some earthquakes shook up Samoa and an extra earthquake surged next to the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Those quakes provoked some major currents and tsunamis, who hit several countries, including Vietnam.

But other Asian countries will not be that sad today.

On 1 October Japan has a special day called : Koromogae. On this day Japanese have to change their summer clothes for winter clothes. An extra layer will help to survive winter. As this year is quite warm for the time being, it just means businessman have to start to wear their tie again. More formal dresses are the trend for the winter.

Meanwhile Chinese people are proud to celebrate 60 years of People's Republic of China. I got some warm hearted messages today form Chinese friends telling me to watch television, so I can be amazed by the military parade next to Tienanmen.

Some pictures:

Cherry Blossom festival

Last month the Hanami (花見) festival was officially opened upon reporting the first cherry blossoms in Tokyo. This TV report is a nationwide sign to start travelling and looking for the hot spots with the most beautiful blossoms. The cherry blossoms or Sakura are considered the greatest of all blossoms. This Hanami festival takes about 1 months the period that all the blossoms over Japan have perished. But this is a month in which Japanese go crazy about Sakura. Special food is sold like sakura tofu and sakura ice cream, both are pink coloured of course. It is a time of crowds visiting sakura spot, resulting in traffic jams.
As beautiful as the flowers are so are the people visiting the flowers. People feel relaxed and open-hearted just like the blooming of a flower. Special tea ceremonies will be held and some people will put on their best traditional clothes for viewing these blossoms. No the girls are no geisha's! Just woman dressing in their spring kimono to enjoy the Hanami festival.

新年快乐!

Happy Chinese New Year!


According to the Chinese moon calendar today is the first day of the Chinese Year.
Nowadays Chinese have the same calendar system as Westerners, which means it is also 7 February 2008 in China. In the imperial days years were counted by the reign of the appropriate emperor. For example "the 7th year of reign of emperor Qienlong of the Qing dynasty".
The moon calendar is the acient form of Chinese calendar and used nowadays to locate the main Chinese festivals!


The Chinese horoscope is always associated with Chinese New Year because the animals change yearly, not monthly as in a Western calendar.

12 animals are used in this cycle and every twelve years the same animal comes back.


Rat 1948 1960 1972 1984 1996 2008 Yang
Ox 1937 1949 1961 1973 1985 1997 Yin
Tiger 1938 1950 1962 1974 1986 1998 Yang
Rabbit 1939 1951 1963 1975 1987 1999 Yin
Dragon 1940 1952 1964 1976 1988 2000 Yang
Snake 1941 1953 1965 1977 1989 2001 Yin
Horse 1942 1954 1966 1978 1990 2002 Yang
Goat 1943 1955 1967 1979 1991 2003 Yin
Monkey 1944 1956 1968 1980 1992 2004 Yang
Cock 1945 1957 1969 1981 1993 2005 Yin
Dog 1946 1958 1970 1982 1994 2006 Yang
Pig 1947 1959 1971 1983 1995 2007 Yin


According to Chinese legend, the twelve animals quarrelled one day as to who was to head the cycle of years. The gods were asked to decide and they held a contest: whoever was to reach the opposite bank of the river would be first, and the rest of the animals would receive their years according to their finish.
All the twelve animals gathered at the river bank and jumped in. Unknown to the ox, the rat had jumped upon his back. As the ox was about to jump ashore, the rat jumped off the ox's back, and won the race. The pig, who was very lazy, ended up last. That is why the rat is the first year of the animal cycle, the ox second, and the pig last.


Every animal is associated with different qualities and Chinese people believe very strongly on those qualities.
2006 was for example a bad year because it's the year of the dog. The dog is a noisy and barking animal, dog people are said to be bully. So the dog year is a year with a lot of quarrels and fights.
2007 was an excellent year. The pig is associated with fertility and wealth. So this was the year there was a huge baby boom in China, because it is such a prosperous year and of course Chinese can only have one child so it is very well planed when it is born.
Girls born under the sign of goat (or sheep) will not easily find a partner. Because for girls it is seen as a bad symbol.


But this year is the year of the rat 鼠. For Chinese people it is a very good year associated with good business and wealth. But watch out for overdoing, it might end up just the other way.
The rat is a clever animal as can be seen from the story above and he is the first animal. Stands for order, aggression, wealth, charm and in extremes stands controlling, bossy, power-driven.
Rats are hardworking, charming and intelligent. Perfect professions for them include; politics, psychology, espionage, accounting, acting, ...


People in the year of rat have to be aware of Horses, these two are not compatible at all.
Rats tend to have good relations with Dragons, Monkeys and Oxen.


Rat is very easy to breed, so the rat reproduction speed is very fast. In Chinese astrology, Rat is a Romantic Star. Rat is the Romantic Star only for people born in year of Rabbit, Sheep or Pig. If Rabbit, Sheep and Pig people look for the love, they have more chance to meet the opposite sex. If they are already in love, they have chance to talk about the marriage in 2008. (Hmm I am a sheep, who knows).

So I wish you a very Happy Chinese New Year! It should be a prosperous year for us all. If you plan to have a baby this year, you are a year too late for the Chinese jackpot, but the rat is still a good sign for your baby!