Gong Xi Fa Cai! Xing Nian Kuai Le! Um... All the good, prosperity, healthy, wealthy wise stuff!! (In Chinese!) Sorry for the lack of flowery auspicious Chinese proverbs, I honestly tried but I fail miserably in the Chinese Language Department. =/

In my best attempts to embrace my oriental roots, I bought a bottle of red nail polish, painted my nails bright red and made an effort to put on something red to school on the first day. I took my seat in the lecture hall, and as I began unbuttoning my winter coat, I leaned forward and stole a glance towards my left. And my right. And then to the front, and the back, the sides (I was quite kepoh). And everyone with black hair (some la-la's with colored ones) and slits as eyes were dressed in red. Are we Chinese really that superstitious?!

The only two superstitions I remembered my mom and aunties passing down to me were not to sweep the house, and to stay away from books. And they were done easily without any effort, first day of Chinese new year or not :) 

The eve of the eve of Chinese New Year was spent in Clifton 2. It was pot luck (although some cheated i.e roast duck, waitrose chicken etc!!) but the food has improved tremendously since we were first years. It used to be somewhere along the lines of soggy indo mee lol. 

Hann came up with his brilliant idea to 'loh' our yee sang with Flo-rida's Low. So we had wait for the chorus when "Shorty got low, low, low, low, low..." before all the chopsticks came out clawing one other. 

Me, Lou, Mei, Alina, Mazzy

The eve of Chinese New Year was spent in High Holborn, where all the 3rd year LSE students gathered for another pot luck dinner. Everyone plucked out their best recipes from three years of accumulated trials and errors, and surprisingly everything was rather impressive! I never knew half my friends could cook such decent dishes :P 

We had Yee Sang. So there were thirty of us all together, crowding around a tiny table, everyone fighting to have their bits of yee sang reach record level heights. It was raining yee sang (gross), and since my hands were stuck right below everyone else's... they were sticky at the end of it. (Yuck)

All of us!

To further emulate the CNY atmosphere, we baked Corn Flake cookies and I burnt my hand taking the tray out from the oven! Stop laughing, I sacrificed my hand to save the cookies! :( And no, it wasn't the only thing I helped with pfft. 

We gambled, but with the British Pounds, my heart felt like it was growing weaker by the number of BlackJack rounds we played. 

But nevertheless! It was rather an enjoyable season :) Except.. I'm missing the Mah Jong and Mandarin Oranges. AND Ang Pows! I've assigned my brother and sister on a mission to collect my Ang Pows on my behalf. 

You both better not steal my share, remember that God is watching....

:)

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I drew that lantern (in case you couldn't make out what it was) on my own!! 

May the year of the Ox be an oxpicious one ;o) Happy Chinese New Year x