or
Gōng xǐ fā cái - not much point putting the Mandarin in as I think blogspot is still banned by the govt. on the mainland.
Happy New Year - may the year of the Ox be auspicious.
I went into Chinatown this afternoon to learn that there are distinct similarities between Chinese New Year celebrations in Bangkok and Sydney. (I was always too lame to go to Yokohama for it.)
Bangkok has a large Chinese population, more accurately it has a large population of people who are of Chinese descent, quite a lot of my Thai students have some Chinese in their heritage. Apparently it is more the case with Bangkok than with other areas in Thailand. Reviled / revered former PM Taksin comes from a Chinese family. Even the royals have Chinese heritage.
I was quite disoriented wandering around Yaowarat (the Chinatown area). The no 40 bus which I usually take to go in there took a different route, leaving me rather confused when I alighted. Many of the streets were blocked off because the Princess was giving some kind of address. I had the privilige of seeing the Princess (the kings daughter) and found her rather indistinguishable from a good many middle aged East Asian women...
If the first day of the Chinese New Year is meant to be indicative of the year to come it may be auspicious. I could find a loo when I wanted one (they are much more difficult to find here than in Japan), the air-conditioned buses came first, the pineapple from the fruit vendors was tasty (even though the duck soup was a bit heavy on powdered chicken bouillon - but had I thought in advance that would have been entirely predictably given that I was buying from a street vendor on a busy trading day), my pockets weren't picked despite the crowds(helps to wear a wrap around skirt), my chicken and egg roti (kind of a crepe crossed with a jaffle)was tasty and I got home incident free. :)
I will post some pictures in the next few days.
Gōng xǐ fā cái - not much point putting the Mandarin in as I think blogspot is still banned by the govt. on the mainland.
Happy New Year - may the year of the Ox be auspicious.
I went into Chinatown this afternoon to learn that there are distinct similarities between Chinese New Year celebrations in Bangkok and Sydney. (I was always too lame to go to Yokohama for it.)
Bangkok has a large Chinese population, more accurately it has a large population of people who are of Chinese descent, quite a lot of my Thai students have some Chinese in their heritage. Apparently it is more the case with Bangkok than with other areas in Thailand. Reviled / revered former PM Taksin comes from a Chinese family. Even the royals have Chinese heritage.
I was quite disoriented wandering around Yaowarat (the Chinatown area). The no 40 bus which I usually take to go in there took a different route, leaving me rather confused when I alighted. Many of the streets were blocked off because the Princess was giving some kind of address. I had the privilige of seeing the Princess (the kings daughter) and found her rather indistinguishable from a good many middle aged East Asian women...
If the first day of the Chinese New Year is meant to be indicative of the year to come it may be auspicious. I could find a loo when I wanted one (they are much more difficult to find here than in Japan), the air-conditioned buses came first, the pineapple from the fruit vendors was tasty (even though the duck soup was a bit heavy on powdered chicken bouillon - but had I thought in advance that would have been entirely predictably given that I was buying from a street vendor on a busy trading day), my pockets weren't picked despite the crowds(helps to wear a wrap around skirt), my chicken and egg roti (kind of a crepe crossed with a jaffle)was tasty and I got home incident free. :)
I will post some pictures in the next few days.
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