Tomorrow is Chu Yi (初一), the first day of the lunar new year on the Chinese calendar. For those of you keeping track, it marks the beginning of the Year of the Rat. If the thought of a rat makes you wrinkle your nose, you can call it Year of the Mouse, since the Chinese […]
Happy Chinese New Year
Today is Chu Yi (初一), the first day of the lunar new year on the Chinese calendar. For those of you keeping track, it marks the beginning of the Year of the Pig. It’s “my” year, which means I’m either 12, 24, 48, 60, 72, or 84. I’ll let you guess which it is! All […]
Happy Year of the Monkey
Today is the first day of the New Year in the traditional Chinese lunar calendar. According to the Chinese zodiac, this is the Year of the Monkey. If I were still in my Beijing apartment, this is what I would be seeing outside my living room window. (If you are reading this by email, please […]
Please Don’t Ask
Once I began studying Chinese, I fairly quickly became fluent at answering the following questions: Where are you from? Why are you here? Are you married? Why not? I can’t say that I dreaded the questions (OK, maybe I dreaded #3 and #4 a little), but I certainly knew that they were going to be asked […]
Friday Photo: Fireworks and Pollution
Wednesday was the eve of the Chinese New Year, the night that ushers in 15 straight days of shooting off fireworks. In the run-up to the holiday this year, I spotted a poster in a Beijing neighborhood reminding people that fireworks are a source of pollution. It says (roughly) “How much healthy air is taken away […]
On the Horse
I’ve been meaning to write about this for awhile, and there’s no better time than today, the first day of the Year of the Horse! One of my favorite Chinese expressions is mashang (马上), which can be translated as “immediately,” or “right away.” It is used to convey that something is about to happen. Q：Ni […]
