January 26 is Chinese New Year. What should I do to celebrate it?

Find your nearest China Town and go visit it for the festivities!!

I do it all the time.. It’s soooo much fun..

The dragon and lion dancing, and all the food and firecrackers it’s really fun.. :D

That’s a great idea! It would be a long ride through snow covered mountains to get to the nearest Chinatown though. I’d have to buy tire chains. It would be about a ten hour ride because I keep stopping to buy drinks, then I keep stopping to use restrooms… Then I’d need a motel room… That’s a great idea but there’s no convenient Chinatown around here, so what would I do if there’s no Chinatown around?

Any way you could have a small Chinese-themed party? Get some traditional food, traditional drink, traditional decorations, invite people over and have a good time. :) Get some firecrackers to light, whatever you can do.

Yikes! I have no facilities for throwing a party! 30 people wanted to come over for Christmas! Good thing there was a blizzard! There are a few local festivities but they’re so scattered & low energy. I’d still like to go, but they’re all so sedate. For example, a Chinese band will play traditional music in a local casino… but they usually play one five-minute song once an hour. It’s so nonfestive.

Blow something heavy up.

There’s always food. I hear long noodles (for long life) are traditional. Even if you don’t have a Chinatown or a place for a party, hopefully you can still get noodles!

It sounds as though you are trapped in a veritable snow prison, so I suggest ordering in Chinese, drinking a tsing-tao and hoping for a good fortune cookie.

Yes! Of course! Noodles & tsing tao by Chinese fast food delivery. The more time goes on, the more I believe food & drink is the answer to everything, but I didn’t know they blew up heavy objects in Chinatown on Chinese New Year. What sort of things do they blow up? And isn’t there a way to go somewhere nearby & have a less sedate Chinese New Year?

Order in, then blow up something heavy (whatever that entails) in the comfort of your own home. Yay! Yay! Chinese New Year!!

God I love Chinese New Year. I may love this more than Christmas. And I have SATs just before :(
We usually visit friends and family we haven’t seen for ages and ages. But it seems a bit impossible in your situation. Buy some fireworks ;)
Usually stockpile our homes with food and sweets for guests. Buy some yearcake, wonderful stuff. If that’s not possible, have a big meal with your family, not unlike Thanksgiving haha. Well, that’s what we Chinese do.
Also, spring cleaning, always sweep inwards not outwards. Buy new clothes, new shoes, new socks to celebrate the new year.

I’m not saying do all these things, just telling you a few things Chinese do during CNY.
And noodles are usually for birthdays. We eat yearcake and radish cake.

Build your own Great Wall of China made of snow.
Invite a few friends over. Pretend you’re a hoard of Mongol invaders.
After you’ve been bested by this amazing architectural feat,
order some long life noodles from the local Chinese restaurant.

Bonus:
– Make your own mongol hats out of everyday household materials.
– Write personalized fortune cookie messages like
.The new year will bring new countries to invade.

@mrdh: please explain yearcake.

Ah that sucks that you don’t have a Chinatown near by!!

Here in Melbourne, I go to the Casino, they throw all these parties for it for the whole week… It’s awesome!!!

You should definately organise it in advanced one year.. You’ll have heaps of fun..

I wouldn’t know what else to do, except throwing a Chinese themed party, but you’ve already said that wasn’t in the cards..

Hope you have a fun time though!!

Year cake and radish cake
The dark one is year cake and the other is turnip (not radish sorry) cake.
You can eat it for breakfast lunch or dinner. Just fry ‘em. Fry the year cake with egg though. You can only buy year cake these few weeks, afterwards, you’ll have to wait another 12 months for more. You can get turnip cake anytime of the year though.

Since it’s the year of the Ox, is it best to eat Ox or avoid eating Ox? Also, Obama is an Ox, so this should be an excellent year for him.