Welcoming New Year In China
By LLNG NYI WANG
PREPARATION FOR the New Year, i when I was a child living in our ancestral home in Soochow, China, began on the 24th day of the twelfth moon in our calendar. During the six or seven remaining days there was groat activity in our household―-mostly for my mother and the women servants.
Chinese New Year's Day occurs anywhere between January 21 and February 19. This year it is February 15.
For us children, my three brothers, myself and my cousins in the other branch of the family it was indeed the happiest time of the year. Our old tutor would have left our home for his own to earn a well-deserved rest from the incessant noise and pranks of the children and the constant vigilance ol my father. Our nurses and the other women servants were too busy to be bothered with us, and, anyway, this was our vacation. Presents―mostly of food―would begin to come from rela-
tives and friends. The wonderful golden globes of sweet oranges and kum-quats! The New Year cakes! How good those tasted when they were slowly-toasted i wrapped in a leaf of salted cabbage) in the dying embers of the cookstove, or when fried in sesame seed oil.
The day's activity for the grownups
began early and ended only when night came and the kerosene lamps were lighted. Each day was set aside for a particular task. In the early days of my childhood, the rice flour with which many of our delicious pastries were made was ground in one room adjacent to the kitchen. I can see now the huge stone mill―one woman feeding the rice into the opening in the center, snow white powder cascading on all sides, another woman brushing the powder down to a huge shining tub, made of wood and varnished in bright red and gold, while all the time
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CHINATOWN NEWS, FEB. 3, 1961