快乐中国新年大家

Happy Chinese New Year - The Chinese lunar new year is a huge holiday in the Asian community around the world and Singapore celebrates it with style.  The kids are off from school for a four day weekend and the decorations have been impressive throughout the city.

What I have been finding very funny is the fact that in Singapore, it was announced that it is the "Year of the Goat" and there are goat figures EVERYWHERE.  But here's the problem - there are also Sheep figures and Ram figures everywhere as well.  While Singapore refers to it as the Year of the Goat, Japan is referring to it as the Year of the Sheep.  I've been chuckling thinking that these city slickers here didn't know the difference between a darn sheep and a goat!  Turns out there's an explanation.....

Technically it's the "Year of the Yang" in Mandarin which as a specific Mandarin character associated with it.  "Yang" refers to any animal in the Caprinae subfamily (any hoofed animal that eats grass and bleats).  The Chinese have a symbol that goes along with "yang" to specifically describe a goat, a different one to describe a sheep and so on.  For instance, a goat is technically translated to "mountain yang" while a sheep is described as a "soft yang" and a Mongolian gazelle is a "yellow yang".

So what animal you pick to go with the Year of the Yang is open to interpretation and what you might like to look at for the following year.  So as a family, the Virklers need to decide whether we are on the side of the Goat or Ram or Sheep and then we'll find something fun to represent this year as a memento.  In the mean time, we have had fun looking up year the kids were born in - Sumner was born in the Year of the Monkey, Henry the Year of the Pig, and Ella the Year of the Horse.  Funny characteristics go with each of them.

The Lion Dance is one of the most famous parts of the Chinese New Year celebrations.  They are done throughout the city and require an enormous amount of agility and practice.  The kids had a Lion Dance assembly and they all commented on how loud the drumming was that went along with the dance.  Like man of the things we've seen in Asia, the loud drumming seems to be very popular and is almost used as an attempt at putting someone into an almost trance-like state.  The whole dance is absolutely amazing.  Pictures below.