Qing Ming Festival

Source: AZN Lifestyles TV

Azn Lifestyles TV shows you what Chinese Remberance day and ghost festival is about. This why their parents and grandparents are going to the cemetery and temple this week with offerings.

Youtube Link

It Is Good To Be A Girl In Vietnam

Source: Saigon Nezumi

Well, finally, the endless marathon of giving gifts and flowers to girls will end on Sunday. March 8th is International Women’s Day which is observed in Vietnam. On this day, guys must give their girlfriends and/or wives flowers and a nice card. Some guys will even take their girlfriend and/or wife out to a good dinner. It can be a romantic occasion.

If you are a guy and you forget this day, umm, you will be in big trouble. Especially if you have a girlfriend or are married. For that matter, if you miss the other significant days for girls here, you can get into big trouble.

I mentioned in the first paragraph about the marathon of gifts and flowers. It is quite true. Gift and flower giving starts in December and ends in March. During those 4 months, you have five occassions where you must give flowers and/or gifts. They include:

* Christmas (December 24/25th) - Must give a gift and dinner
* New Year’s Eve (December 31st) - Must give a gift and dinner
* Tet Lunar New Year - Must give a gift and lucky money
* Valentine’s Day (February 14) - Must give flowers , chocolate, and dinner
* Women’s Day (March 8th) - Must give flowers and dinner

There are two other occasions where you will have to give flowers and/or a gift to your girlfriend and/or wife:

* Birthday - Must give flowers, card, gift, and pay for their birthday party
* Vietnam Women’s Day (October 20th) - Just flowers are ok on this day

I think the Vietnamese have missed the point for March 8. International Women's Day is a day to celebrate women and for women for fight for equal rights in society. You will usually see mass-demonstrations on this day. It's kind of like a Women's Labour Day. It shouldn't be a day to wine and dine girlfriend.

In Canada I think it's been reduced to just Christmas, Birthday and Valentines. Although these are totally blown out of proportion these days.

Hinamatsuri!

I want one of these dolls

Source: @AlohaArleen

It's Girl's Day!

Wikipedia: Hinamatsuri

The Japanese Doll Festival (雛祭り ,Hina-matsuri?), or Girls' Day, is held on March 3, the third day of the third month. Platforms with a red hi-mōsen are used to display a set of ornamental dolls (雛人形 ,hina-ningyō?) representing the Emperor, Empress, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress of the Heian period.

The custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period. Formerly, people believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. Hinamatsuri traces its origins to an ancient Japanese custom called hina-nagashi (雛流し ?, lit. "doll floating"), in which straw hina dolls are set afloat on a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles or bad spirits with them. The Shimogamo Shrine (part of the Kamo Shrine complex in Kyoto) celebrates the Nagashibina by floating these dolls between the Takano and Kamo Rivers to pray for the safety of children. Also people have stopped doing this now because of fishermen catching the dolls in their nets. They now send them out in to the sea, and when the spectators are gone they take the boats out of the water and bring them back to the temple and burn them.

The customary drink for the festival is amazake, a sweet, non-alcoholic version of sake made from fermented rice; the customary food is colored arare, bite-sized crackers flavored with soy sauce. Chirashizushi (sushi rice flavored with sugar, vinegar, topped with raw fish and a variety of ingredients) is often eaten. A soy sauce-based soup is also served containing clams still in the shell. Clam shells in food are deemed the symbol of a united and peaceful couple, because a pair of clam shells fits perfectly, and no pair but the original pair can do so.

Valentine Rules in Asia

Source: Alpha Asian

Found this very funny video on Alpha Asian. (Thanks James)


Youtube Link

Woohoo! THRICE as much!!

New Years = FIREWORKS!

Here's a wonderful article on firecrackers and fireworks.

Source: Midlife Crisis

Now that Christmas is behind us, it’s time to focus on the upcoming New Year - and that means stocking up on FIREWORKS! Okay, maybe it’s mostly a “guy thing” but firecrackers is something that we Baby Boomers grew up with.

Back in the day - on Oahu - we didn’t need no stinkin’ permit to purchase firecrackers. We just needed someone over 18 years of age. And it was simple then: Baby Camel or Checkerbombs. Oh yeah, and “cracker balls”. Do you remember cracker balls? Little colored balls about the size of a small jawbreaker. Came in a square box similar to the box that mosquito punks come in. Cracker balls were made out of what looked like paper mache and had little gray rocks inside them. We’d throw them on the concrete floor hard enough so they’d pop. Sometimes we’d have to give some stubborn ones a few overhand throws to the floor until they’d pop. I always wanted to try shooting them against a wall with a slingshot - but we weren’t allowed to have slingshots. I don’t know what ever happened to cracker balls. My dad said they looked too much like candy and little kids were getting hurt by biting on them - so they banned them.

Firecrackers aren't a big deal here in Canada. People usually just attend a midnight event and watch the fireworks shoot up into the sky. It's also usually -30C on New Years Eve so people tend to stay indoors.

It's a different story in Hawaii and in Asia as people buy firecrackers, light them, then run away covering their ears. Don't forget that in Asia there's also Chinese New Year which falls on January 26, 2009. So there's double the opportunity to blow your fingers off.