Chinese Celebrating the Year of the Dragon

It’s true, some Chinese citizens have been living in Portland for decades.  But still, tradition is tradition.  And those with Chinese origins went all out in their celebrations of the Year of the Dragon yesterday.  Amanda has a friend of Chinese origin who does it.  She wakes up to a bowl of vegetarian dumplings, symbolically hoping the Year of the Dragon will bring prosperity.

While I have no Chinese blood running through my veins, I nonetheless decided to join in too, so I bought a bunch of tangerines.  Well, I figured that the kids love them; I know they’re healthy and it doesn’t hurt that tangerines just happen to be a symbol of good luck in Chinese culture! Now, I won’t go so far as to hang them on the front door (although for sure one of my neighbors has done that in the past on a Dragon New Year), but it’s nice to take a few fun symbols from another culture and hope – somewhere in the back of my mind – that it’ll bring us good luck!  Hell, we could all do with some extra prosperity no matter in what form it comes!

Apparently, I read somewhere that are close to 40,000 Oregonians of Chinese descent!  (Out of a 3.8m populace that’s quite significant). So there are bound to be a lot of celebrations going on around my neighborhood. I thought it might be a nice idea to educate the kids about it as well, so I’ll be speaking to them about people, cultures and their differences to try and encourage acceptance and diversity in my home.  Oof, now I’m beginning to sound somewhat PC!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year of the Dragon!