新年快樂！Xin nian kuai le! Happy New Year!

Today is the first day of the new lunar calendar. For all those people who made new year's resolutions back on January 1st and have since broken them, now is your chance to try again. I don't usually make New Year's resolutions because I think every new day is an opportunity to start fresh. Why wait for the calendar to tell you? My plan for today - sleep in (check!), get some work done for my online class (unfortunate, but necessary), take a long bike ride (three hours! Check!), and beat Lee at Jenga when we go to game night at a friend's house. It's a pretty full schedule for a vacation day.

Last night we were invited to a friend's family dinner to celebrate New Year's eve. Lulu is a new fourth grade teacher at KAS. This is her family, including cousins, parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.

Although we had dinner with Lulu's mother's side of the family, traditionally families spent New Year's eve with the paternal family and travel to their maternal family two days later. After sharing dinner with us, Lulu and most of her family were going to another part of the city for a second dinner with more family members. Lee and I declined her generous invitation to tag along since 9 pm is too late for me to start eating a second dinner. Actually, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been hungry enough to eat again at any hour last night, as there was so much food at our "early" dinner.

There is a lot of symbolism in many of the foods that were served but I'll only share a couple. First, there was steamed spinach, complete with roots. It's the first thing you eat. The long roots represent longevity so you eat the whole thing. It was quite delicious and an excellent start to a lot of delicious food.

Another tradition is the whole fish. It is served every year, but never eaten. 

The uneaten fish symbolizes that you will be back next year to eat it together with your family. Nice thought.