Cheers!

Happy New Year!

រីករាយចូលឆ្នាំសកល!

Dear Readers,

I wish for you a blessed 2017, that the year be enriched with sincerity and compassion. I pray that 2017 will be full courageous dreams and beautiful memories. In this new year, may you abound in hope, love, and joy!

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Well, this blog wasn’t posted on the first day of the new year as I intended. (Surprise.) However, I think there’s some circumstantial elegance in that I’m continuing this post during Chinese New Year celebrations. 

Bountiful goodness

Happy Year of the Rooster! “Roosters auspicious gifts are forward thinking and solid self-confidence,” according to an image I saw. The Chinese New Year is also referred to as the Lunar New Year, and each year is identified by one of the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac. A common well-wish for the New Year, in loose translation, is for health, wealth, and opportunity. Here’s a fun language lesson for you:

Earlier, I read a festive coke can, and Google Translate insists that the phrase says “Chinese New Year Greetings!” However, my host-sister had told me that the key word meant opportunity, so I asked, “Like, it’s wishing good opportunity in the New Year?” She said yes. Then I used a dictionary define each word, discovering that the phrase can mean “Blessed Occasion,” where opportunity can substitute for occasion.

ជូនពរឱកាសចូលឆ្នាំចិន!

Delicious

In Cambodia, the Chinese New Year is celebrated because there are many with Chinese ancestry. My host-mother spent hours preparing plates of delicious food- chicken, stew, fried noodles... Tables laden with food, lucky trees decorated with little red envelopes (containing money for the children), offerings, and burning incense were seen in every home. My host sister showed me her Facebook feed, filled with photos of families dressed in red and the lavish decorations and displays of food. Friends and family gathered to eat together, to play together, or to holiday together.

Cambodian holidays are united by the traditions of food and family.

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Well, I started this post because I wanted to write about the first New Year’s Eve celebration, as in the 31^st of December 2016. Ordinarily, I don’t await the New Year by staying up until midnight or going out to parties or what-have-you, but this year was special. My host family was going to the riverside for Countdown, and they wanted me to join them.

Uncertain of what was ahead, I patiently waited through the day. My waiting was interrupted when we took a short afternoon adventure to the nearby province of Keb, where I finally saw the sea. (More on that later.) Then, upon our return, my host mother began cooking, making these delicious fried shrimp cakes. (I love them so much!) She kept making them and making them, and that was my first conception that this wasn’t just a *little* event that we were attending.

Ultimately, I found myself at the riverside. The riverside is a long expanse of what you’d call park space, I suppose. Along the river, between the water and the road, is a wide paved area with trees and benches, frequently used for river-watching and sunset-gazing, for strolling, or for chatting with friends. On NYE, it was used for all that and more. The paved area was covered completely by picnic mats, lounge chairs, and blankets where families had staked their claim. We shared our picnic mats with a family from the neighborhood and their friends.

Some of the delicious food

Our speaker was playing music while the children danced along. My host-brother and his fiancée set up the grill and began cooking squid and shrimp. My host-mother unwrapped the heaps of fried shrimp cakes while her friends dished out rice and began serving food: shrimp, chicken, beef, cucumbers, and so, so much more. There was probably 20 of us and we could have eaten three times over. One of the friends started chopping up the fresh fruit- watermelon, grapes, longan, apples, oh so many types- and prepared a cooler full of sangria to share.

The children were dancing, the people were laughing, the air was just filled with good cheer. After sunset, the children started lighting firecrackers and fireworks. There was music pouring from many speakers, and further down the river were stages with live music and performances.

Launching a lantern

At one point, I took a walk with my host-sister and her friends, threading our way through the people and through traffic, admiring all the food, fireworks, and festivities. The public buildings were decorated with strands of lights. The restaurants were over-flowing with people. While we were out, one of the friends bought a paper lantern, and I started to notice all the glowing lanterns people were launching into the sky.

Back at our picnic spot, children were attempting to launch lanterns, too. These lanterns were about half the size of a full-grown human, so the children were dwarfed. The adults were invested in this experience, too. As some lanterns caught fire before they launched or others caught a draft of wind then promptly dropped from the sky into the river, everyone offered their advice, their suggestions of the best method for success. When a lantern would float gently up in the air, the crowd would cheer. When it would dip, and start to fall, they’d gasp and urge it up, up, up. If it fell, the groans resounded. Everyone had the joy of little children, and it was beautiful.

Another lantern!

Side note: there were also children wandering around carrying balloons shaped like various animals, and I thought it was genius that instead of tying the balloon to the child’s wrist or making them hold tight, the balloon was simply tied to a full water bottle to weight it down.

There were these rocket firework sticks that shot sparks from the tip, in slow succession as you held it out. They were quite pretty. However, I loved them because they so much reminded me of the spells in Harry Potter that would shoot red or green sparks from the tip of the wand. And there you have it. Okay, I’m sure there’s a name, but I don’t know it, so from that point on the were Harry Potter firework sticks.

As midnight approached, I was quite tired, despite the copious amounts of coke I’d consumed. As I grew tired, I grew chilled, despite my jacket and blanket-like scarf. Eventually, I was tucked inside my host-father’s jacket, too, and I leaned back against the wall, content with life from within my three layers. It was peaceful and I was happy.

I spent most of that time in silence, but there was one especially sweet, sweet moment. There was a Canadian in the group, and I did not speak to him for most of the night. However, at one point my host-mother sat beside me and him beside her. He looked at her and complimented her fried shrimp cakes (as well he should, because those are the bomb)… and she looked at me, because this man was speaking English to her and she did not understand. I felt this warmth inside of me as I translated for her, and again, as she wanted to tell him they were all eaten, all gone. Then there was a moment of grand confusion, because he started talking about these mosquito net tents and how they’d be good to buy for a farm (he has one?) and would be better to rent than the karaoke business he already ran (honestly, I was lost by this topic transition), and I attempted to translate, because he was still talking to my host-mother, but it was not successful. Regardless, I just want to honor that moment, when my host-mother turned to me, silently asking me what this many was saying to her.

Fireworks!

At midnight, the crowd was standing, people were on the beach lighting the Harry Potter fireworks and some fireworks were exploding in the sky. Two confessions: One- I found this do-it-yourself celebration so much fun and engaging with the whole crowd standing, engaged in the lights display, more so than I’ve ever found passively sitting and watching a massive firework show. Two- I actually missed the turn of midnight. I was videoing my host father and some young men and their third attempt to launch a lantern when I saw the sky start to light up with sparks and fireworks, so I turned my camera towards the sky. Then, my host mother handed me a lit Harry Potter firework stick. It was after that I glanced at my watch and saw that it was 12:04a.

Midnight celebration

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Happy New Year, Readers! I hope you’ve been able to catch a glimpse of this beautiful life, despite that words really fail to express the experiences I have had. 

Peace to you and yours!

With love,

KMJ