Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year started on Monday Growing up Filipino, my family didn’t celebrate the Lunar New Year. All I remember is that I was always a little jealous of the Chinese and Vietnamese kids who got money for New Year. I mean, they didn’t have just Santa to gift them — they got money from ALL their relatives. How cool was that?

Though The Hubster ™ is Vietnamese, we don’t formally celebrate the Lunar New Year though we have “accidentally” celebrated it. How do you accidentally celebrate it, you ask? It involves deciding, “Oh hey, a bowl of pho would be great!”, driving down to favorite pho restaurant to get stuck in the traffic jam from hell, only to realize that it was the Lunar New Year eve. I somehow managed to do that TWICE while we were living in San Jose. I definitely had some fun watching people set off fire crackers at the Lion Center and got a taste for the Lunar New Year treats.

Since then, Lunar New Year has become a time for me to grab some lotus candies and banh chung from a Vietnamese deli. Not a formal celebration to be sure but still a tradition tha I liked to keep. While living in San Jose and later, the East Bay, this wasn’t a problem because there were always either a Vietnamese deli within a short drive or a well stocked Asian supermarket. I went looking for our required lotus candies and banh chung at the local Asian supermarket this weekend. To say I was massively disappointed would be an understatement. There isn’t a large Chinese or Vietnamese population in this particular area — East Contra Costa County is considered to be more the Delta than the Bay Area — so this wasn’t surprising.

I’d like TLE to learn more about her heritage and be able to participate in both Filipino and Vietnamese traditions. Seeing as I’ve already indoctrinated the poor thing into being Filipino by doing the whole baptism + big ass Filipino party, it is only fair that she get to explore her Vietnamese side as well. The Hubster ™ and I have decided that next year, we will make more of an effort to celebrate Lunar New Year though honestly it wasn’t for a lack of trying this year. We’re just in the wrong city

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