Year of the Ox

Happy Chinese New Year!





or as the Chinese call it,





Happy Spring Festival!








For the next 15 days, Chinese everywhere will be wearing new clothes, eating dumplings, lighting fireworks and spending time with their family.






This year is especially fortuitous for me because I am an ox!

My students told me to wear all red clothes, (inside and out) on the eve of the Chinese New Year, to keep away the evil monster and to acquire good luck for myself the entire year.

So I bought these,

these are my feet taken by one of the kids at the orphanage.

Talithia is in her wheel chair beside me.

and I bought a red hairband and red underwear,

and I wore all these with my red pants last night

with my red and green shirt,

and I told Ned we weren't allowed to argue

about what to do for dinner, because arguing was bad luck,

and I remembered a woman brushing her hair is bad luck too,

and that was easy not to do because I forgot my hair pick in Tongliao,

and you're also not supposed to sew, or sweep or use scissors,

and so I stayed away from all 3.

Good luck to me,

Good luck to you,

on this eve of the OX