2010: Year of the Tiger

Those of you closest to me will know that I have just celebrated my birthday (many thanks to everyone for the calls, e-mails, text messages etc.) but you may not all be aware that 14 February was also Chinese New Year, so I was on holiday for my birthday as well. At least, I don't think that the national holiday was for my birthday but I would not be surprised if they have decided to honour me. After all, the last holiday was on 01 October, which I guess was for my sister's hatching date...

Fireworks are still going off outside as they have been doing for almost two weeks now. Before the main celebration there is a "Little New Year", which occurs one week before the lunar date, and is when the fireworks start. The pops, whistles and bangs carry on for one week, until Chinese New Year, when the pops, whistles and bangs reach peak intensity. They then continue, albeit at a reduced level, for the next seven days, as the majority of the Chinese are still on holiday. And now, towards the end of the holiday, as businesses begin to re-open, there is a fresh wave of fireworks to celebrate the start of trading again for the New Year.

So, why do they set off so many fireworks?

Apparently, the fireworks are to scare away evil spirits. The Chinese believe the start of a new year to be a very important time and, for those of you who are interested, you can find a lot more information by looking on Wikipedia.

And what does the coming Year of the Tiger mean for those born under this sign?

Maybe some of you were born during a Year of the Tiger?

You were if you were born in one of these years:
1902, 1914, 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986 or 1998 (2010, after 14 February, is, of course, also a Tiger year but I doubt that many readers fall into this category).

Find out more about the characteristics of Tigers here. There is plenty to read, although I have my suspicions that it may be a little biased in their favour. Anyone who registers the URL http://www.yearofthetiger.net/ and spends such a long time posting that much information about just one of the 12 zodiac signs is probably... well, a Tiger.

Anyway, the sun is shining, the snow is refusing to melt, I haven't managed to see any of the preparation in the run up for the Winter Olympics apart from a rather unfortunate photograph of the British women's bobsleigh team, taken from behind (she's lucky that she wasn't – you can see the story here) and it's back to work on Monday.

So, once again, I will just wish you all a xīn nián kuài lè !!

(Happy [Chinese this time] New Year)