Spring Festival
Saturday, January 28th, 2012It’s now the last night of my Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) holiday and I have to go back to work tomorrow (Sunday) after 7 days off. This is the most important holiday here and is the equivalent of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one. We had two family dinners this week, the first on Spring Festival Eve which is the traditional family dinner time and another one a couple days later which we hosted and was our “marriage party” dinner with the family. The custom for Spring Festival is to give red envelopes with money as gifts and there are customs about who gives and gets envelopes. For the dinner we hosted we had to reserve a room in a restaurant several weeks in advance and also pay a deposit and order the dishes a couple weeks in advance.
Except for the family dinners we haven’t done much this week except relax and watch movies. We took Bonnie’s mom with us one day for a boat ride on a couple local lakes. The two lakes (both manmade) are connected by a lock. We also started planning our trip to the states as we plan to be there pretty much the whole month of August. We’re thinking of spending some time in Branson, Missouri and if any of you have been there I’d appreciate your recommendations.
Work is still crazy and we’re still working on finishing the yearend close. There are still changes happening but it seems we’re heading in the right direction. Well that’s all for now.
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