What to Do With a Wintery Watery January Day….
It was grey and rainy and for some reason my husband and I were awake before noon on a Saturday. I was thinking of all the things I had told myself I was Going to Do with this weekend time, none of which I actually wanted to do, because they involved CLEANING.
My past history with Asian families changed my life concerning January and February. As a kid in the midwest, January and February were the months when you got snowed on, sleeted on, rained on, snowed on again, and then everything pretty much turned to ice soup and the school days went on and on and on and on in dreary endless repetition. No more holidays. No scenery. Dark short days without much color. No playing outside without armor of heavy clothing and whatever pair of boots that wasn’t soggy from yesterday. January to February was a BIG SNOOOoore.
But then I met my Chinese life head on and suddenly Christmas was a red and green blink and then
KAPOWWWW!!!!
NEW YEARS appeared in shining red and gold and fireworks.
Not the New Years that had single drunk people in foil hats staggering around to Lawrence Welk murdering Auld Lang Syne, or driving home intoxicated while their spouses admonished from the back seat, but ACTUAL New Years, not amateur night, but The LUNAR New Year about a half month later, where the focus is to clean up your shit from last year mentally, financially, and physically and get your shit together for
LIFE~
for SPRING~
for NEWness~
AND you have to be READY.
(It’s January 29 this year!)
Instead of sleeping and being annoyed with what is, you get on this fast track and
OMIGOD I’ve got to get my HOUSE cleaned and feng shui’d up,
and I have to get my bills paid or at least some new plan of attack worked out,
and get some goals,
and get some jai cooked,
some nin gao cake bought,
and some of those funny seed sweets and candied ginger and all in the octagonal trays so sweetness reigns on the year,
and some fresh FLOWERS oh yes, my favorite excuse for flowers,
and a mess of oranges for the altar (which for me is headed not by Buddha but by Huang Gung of the Chinese opera) with leaves on if possible,
with double stems if at all possible,
and buy some lycee (red envelopes),
and a bunch of other stuff and then
You rest. and Enjoy, and Celebrate.
I fell in love with Cantonese New Year. It’s the gaudiest, most gilded, noisiest gongs-and-fire-crackers time of the year and it is about JOY. And it sets my mind and my house in order.
I fell in love with it because it was about family and outings in packs,
and meeting some relatives you can’t even recall the names of,
and seeing your cousin’s new baby (whoa, she’s funny looking, huh?),
and waiting for a dim sum table for 9 or 11,
and Hi Ah-po, here sit down,
(what’s she saying?)
and sitting on your best guy’s lap because there aren’t going to be any more chairs in the waiting room,
and wearing your best jade,
and don’t worry about how much GOLD, the more the better,
and brocade,
and can’t we get everyone at the same table?
and at least two cell phone batteries are always dead and where the heck is she??
and everyone appearing at last,
and just plain flaunt your good fortune of family out for all the world to see.
You see I’m a Rooster-year baby, and flaunting it is right up a rooster’s alley.
It was like, someone just came and told me You Can LIVE Now. Ok? Stop dreaming and LIVE.
This is what’s happening NOW girl,
LIVE IT UP,
look at all these people around you and rejoice,
because you LIVE.
Look at the Grandmas and the babies and know that you were that once
and will be that some day, and all the while,
you are a part of this bigger thing,
You LIVE. And you enjoy your life.
Now is when you celebrate knowing that.
And looking around a big table full of my friends and family in all their party garb, I really feel that.
So these next two weeks are the prep for that day, even if I will spend it without some of those people, and I’m supposed to be running around scouring and organizing. Koreans have a much quieter version of that, much more sedate.
But today, surprisingly enough, my husband was in a great mood for some unknown reason, and inexplicably proclaimed that we should go to Rowland Heights and get some seriously professional Chinese fried rice.
POSTPONE MY HOLIDAY CLEANING????
Sure!
(I know, I’ll regret it next week)
But then: Fried rice???? you might say. Dude, you can get that anywhere.
NOT so. Not in Los Angeles. Not what HE means, and I know what he means. He had real fried rice in Korea, made by Chinese restaurant owners there, and knows the difference.
There is a particular toasty wonderful Golden Dragon Restaurant kind of wok-imbedded heaven in GOOD fried rice. Most of the Chinese food in Los Angeles is not Cantonese. It’s cooked by meagerly by Koreans, greasily by Mexicans, stickily by quick order chefs, bastardized by white fusion-cuisine wannabe places, and just plain murdered by pinch-hit quick steamtable places. Can you ruin fried rice??? YES, you can. There is no dim sum in Los Angeles proper that meets my criteria either, and none that meets his criteria for fried rice.
So we hopped in the car and headed to Rowland Heights, where the menus are seldom in English and the waitresses are all Mandarin speakers in terribly dorky looking dresses, and we have to point and banter to figure out what the hell we’re actually getting. They don’t even understand my properly pronounced Cantonese. But it’s still GREAT. We ordered five dishes and brought most of it home to go, all completely great. The funny thing is, they always understand “Mai dahn”. (Check, please.)
Then I dragged him around looking for New Year’s cards and flower pots and what have you and we bought some groceries and he looks at half of them and says “Honey what the heck is this?” but I know he’ll like it. I’m getting good at that.
Now after long naps, I must arise and rev into high gear, and get back on my speedtrack for
EEEEEK!
New Years!
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