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24 January 2012

gung hay fat choi

I brag about my awesome roommate all the time because she's super amazing and I love her and we do super fun stuff together.  Just the other night she invited me along to a work holiday party where we got to celebrate Chinese New Year in ultimate fashion.  We welcomed the Year of the Dragon with a bunch of really amazing people and loads of out of control delicious food at M Shanghai.  There were plates full of crispy Peking duck with tasty little buns and Hoisin sauce, whole fish, entire lobsters covered in ginger sauce, jelly fish and mushrooms, pea leaves with garlic, beef with bok choy, even thousand year eggs.  What exactly is a thousand year egg, you ask.  I asked the same thing and then tried one anyway - not too bad, a little chewy.  A thousand year egg, or a century egg or a millennium egg is actually an egg cured in a type of brine until they grey and gel.  They are traditionally served at special events like Chinese New Year.  With the added open bar, this definitely was a special occasion.  Good food and good friends all in the name of a celebration for good luck!  So, Gung Hay Fat Choi everyone.  Here's to a new year of happiness.



The Dragon's Tale

Once upon a time there was a flood, and many small rivers flowed into one big river.  The big river was so deep and wide that the fish who had lived in smaller rivers thought it must be the greatest body of water in the whole world.  They swelled with pride as they swam along in their new home.

How surprised they were, then, when their river emptied into the sea.  They had never seen such a vast body of water.  There they met the ruler of the sea, the Dragon King.  "Oh!" the fishes cried.  "I guess we didn't live in the greatest body of water in the world after all."

The Dragon King replied, "No river is as large as the sea.  Many rivers flow into it, but it is never full.  Still, the sea is not proud.  It knows it is only part of the greatness of the earth, and only a speck of dust compared to the vastness of the universe."

The more you know,
the more you know
there is to know.

from The Dragon's Tale and Other Animal Fables of the Chinese Zodiac, retold by Demi 1996, Henry Holt & Co.

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