In the past weeks I read so many blog posts about the Chinese New Year and how the people will celebrate it and whatnot all. Here in Germany in my little hometown it is a bit different. Sure we would love to celebrate New Year but first of all we only hoped this time not to get sick again as all the past year. We had so bad luck each January/ February with our health that we already prepared all the medication for a week with high fever in bed. But some wonder happened and we stayed healthy! That was indeed already something new for us and actually all we hoped for.
Back in Finland we had this big New Year celebration in Helsinki city center but here in my hometown? Not so much. Even though there are pretty many Chinese living here (we know perhaps 5% of them) there is never any event taking place. Of course they always plan to celebrate with some nice food and invite many friends over but that never happens. Thing is this is still Germany and there are no holidays over the Lunar New Year so people are just too busy to actually celebrate on a working day. We had “holidays” ourselves as we are exporting to China and we just have no customers at all for an entire week due to the holidays over there.
So what can you do when there is authentic Chinese restaurant anywhere nearby and the supermarkets have only limited amount of ingredients for making some nice Chinese dishes? You do nothing but stay home, eat snacks, have video chats with the family in China all the while the Chinese New Year Gala is blaring from the TV. I must say it was a rather uneventful day for us and my wife was a bit down as all chat groups were filled with pictures and videos of the food in China while she was stuck with some grapes and chips.
But it all ain’t bad as this uneventful day and the entire weeks gave us time for other things. My wife finally started studying for her driving license again after starting it back in 2017! I also had time to do some video editing and finished our holiday “movie” from 2015 and started now the editing process for 2016 in which we had the crazy city tour in China.
How did you celebrate the Chinese New Year?
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I can imagine your wife missing the fabulous food in China especially during this auspicious period. I enjoyed some dumplings here at a local Chinese restaurant; not bad but not like the fabulous ones in China.
Would have loved some dumplings! We have some “authentic” restaurants but they are like 1 1/2 hours away by car which is not really worth it in the end (plus the horrible parking fees in Hamburg)
Usually the husband makes potstickers and that’s kind of it. This year I bought a red tablecloth, a lantern, and a flag.
Which was good because this year the husband made lasagna.
Haha lasagna 😀
Reminds me that I should make it also at some point again. For some reason it is the only dish I can make pretty decent however it is just sooo heavy that I can’t eat it more than a couple of times a year
Andy makes it with mushrooms, spinach, and some sort of cheese white sauce. It’s meatless. But’s it’s not light!
Need to try a vegetarian lasagne as well! Always did the meaty version but the heavy stuff comes always from the cheese…and cheese is the best 😅
Cheese is the best.
Good to hear that you didn’t get sick this year. We did!!! The baby got a cold and later on we caught it too… My nose is completely blocked.
We went to Tiger Hill and to a temple and had several lunches with friends. Apart from that, we didn’t do anything special. I didn’t watch the new year gala and was in bed by 10.30…
Yeah with a child the times you get sick grow exponentially to the age of the kid, at least that is how it worked out for us thus far. Before Nathan was born I was down in bed perhaps every 2-3 years …
Tiger Hill…I just edited finally our holiday movie from 2016 and had some fotage from there :)=
It did sound like a quiet time for you Timo. Good no big sick this time round 😁 Chinese New Year is not a holiday on Australia but in the months leading up to it, different places in the different cities and towns will have lion dances and other celebrations. People will always crowd around to see the firecrackers and don’t even mind standing close 😱 Like the other years I celebrated the New Year with dinner with the family but that is about it and went to work as usual.
Well I’d say such events are best celebrated with the family and good food. Don’t really enjoy meeting to many people anyhow.
Here they have some events prior to the Lunar New Year but they are way too far away
It is always a bit weird when you celebrate these celebrations with some new people. Unless they are really nice or funny, then it is hard to get along…
That’s true! I must say that i haven’t celebrated anything with new people in a very long time so far, I guess it is more than 6 years ago last time
Oh I know the feeling of not finding ingredients to cook your food from back home. I deal with that all the time here. Although common East Asian ingredients are more easily found in Poland than Indian/Nepali ingredients. I have the same with Nepali festivals – I don’t really celebrate them. Well at least you weren’t sick! Happy Chinese New Year to you guys! 🙂
I’m my hometown a new shop opened called Asian Specialties, well it is in fact a 100% Indian store with all kinds of food and ingredients needed for Indian cuisine. Was so happy at first that I don’t have to drive to another city to buy stuff and so sad when I couldn’t even find soy sauce 😅
Because it was a weekday, we waited until the weekend to have dinner with my parents. They had decorated the house and bought ingredients from the local Asia market. I still have yet to celebrate CNY in China (that I can remember), so I am looking forward to doing that soon, I hope!
I have the feeling we wonÄt be in China for new year in a long time. Next year our son will start school and thus we can only travel during holidays (travelling during school time without permision, which is impossible to get, is a crime here)