Pork Sausages Galore

Chinese New Year is coming, and Chinatown is gearing up for it.

I walked through a Chinatown street just now to get to the subway from my office, and walked gingerly past a long row of pork sausage stalls trying to avoid contact. Yes, it is in the air .... the war between pigs and the Chinese.

Muslims had just commemorated their new year, and it is based on the lunar month calendar system. The Chinese have a combined lunar-solar calendar.

For convenience, here are the dates of the Chinese festivals coming up (from wikipedia) -

Holidays

The Chinese calendar year has nine main festivals, seven determined by the lunisolar calendar, and two derived from the solar agricultural calendar. (Farmers actually used a solar calendar, and its twenty-four terms, to determine when to plant crops, due to the inaccuracy of the lunisolar traditional calendar. However, the traditional calendar has also come to be known as the agricultural calendar.) The two special holidays are the Qingming Festival and the Winter Solstice Festival, falling upon the respective solar terms, at ecliptic longitudes of 15° and 270°, respectively. As for all other calendrical calculations, the calculations use civil time in China, UTC+8.

Date	English Name	Chinese Name	Remarks	2008
month 1 day 1	Chinese New Year (Spring Festival)	春節 chūnjié	Family gathering and festivities for 3–15 days	Feb 7
month 1 day 15	Lantern Festival	元宵節 yuánxiāojié	Yuanxiao eating and lanterns	Feb 21
Apr 4 or 5	Qingming Festival (Clear and Bright)	清明節 qīngmíngjié	Tomb sweeping	Apr 4
month 5 day 5	Dragon Boat Festival	端午節 duānwǔjié	Dragon boat racing and zongzi eating	Jun 8
month 7 day 7	Night of Sevens	七夕 qīxī	For lovers, like Valentine's Day	Aug 7
month 8 day 15	Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival)[1]	中秋節 zhōngqiūjié	Family gathering and moon cake eating	Sep 14
month 9 day 9	Double Ninth Festival (Double Yang)	重陽節 chóngyángjié	Mountain climbing and flower shows	Oct 7
month 10 day 15	Xia Yuan Festival	下元節 xiàyuánjié	Pray for a peaceful year to the Water God	Nov 12
Dec 21 or 22	Winter Solstice Festival	冬至 dōngzhì	Family gathering	Dec 21
month 12 day 23	Kitchen God Festival			Jan 18

Point to note - the Lantern Festival mentioned above is not the same as the one celebrated in Singapore, which is known as the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. The Chinese in Singapore do not observe the Lantern Festival mentioned above.

Tomorrow is Thaipusam. I have not seen one of those in a long time. When I was in secondary school, my school was located at Serangoon Road, and the whole region would be congested with kavadi carriers and their supporters. It was an experience, really.

This reminds me of why I love being in Singapore. So many cultures, so many faiths, and nobody bugs you about yours.

Alhamdulillah.