Four Tirlán colleagues share their experiences of Chinese New Year

Eugene Shan, Office Manager

Due to Covid-19, there was no family gathering last year. This year, we arranged a party. The weather is particularly good, which is a new and beautiful start. The dragon is an auspicious symbol and in the traditional Chinese zodiac, it is a symbol of power and prosperity.

The Spring Festival starts from New Year’s Eve. Food is the theme and rice dumpling is an essential dessert. This year’s rice dumpling is full of creativity, made into persimmons, which means “everything goes well”.

After the New Year’s Eve dinner, the most lively is the Yu Garden Lantern Festival. This year’s lantern festival is particularly beautiful. Because this year is the Year of the Loong in the lunar calendar, many of the lights are in the shape of dragons, which is particularly grand.

Clyde Chen, Chef

This Chinese New Year’s Eve, wearing my mother’s apron to prepare a big table of delicious for dinner family, there are seafood, pork, chicken, beef and blablabla. After dinner in the evening, our family also went to see the New Year fireworks – beautiful fireworks indicating new year, nice beginning. Happy Loooooooong Year.

Ivy Huang, Tea & Beverage Chef

On Chinese New Year’s Eve, I went back to Ningbo for a reunion dinner with my family, cleaned up, stayed up for the New Year and wrote the character “Fu”. The next day, we went back to the village to pay New Year’s greetings to relatives and friends, harvested some vegetables grown at home and gave them to relatives and friends. I wished everyone a Happy New Year and all the best. In the evening, I set off fireworks and firecrackers with my siblings to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the New Year. There are fish, chicken, crayfish, raw pickled crab, beef, duck tongue and other dishes on the New Year’s Eve dinner.

Barry Deng, Key Account Manager – China

The Fish Lantern Festival is a traditional activity during the Spring Festival in my hometown.

The Huizhou Fish Lantern Festival has a history of more than 600 years. Legend has it that it rarely rained in the hometown long ago, resulting in frequent fires which caused great losses to the villagers.

Later, a wise man made fish lamps to pray to the gods for rain. As a result, there was more rain, fewer fires and a good harvest of food.

Therefore every year, people hold a fish Lantern Festival to avoid disasters and pray for good luck. The fish lamp has become a symbol of luck and wealth. I hope you will have good fortune and good luck in 2024.