Earth Rat Welcome!

The last time I formally celebrated Chinese New Year was a good 9 years ago. I remember specifically that we had to dress in either white, silver or red and that we had to follow an auspicious "route" recommended by the late Paul Lao of the Mandarin Hotel. It seemed like a fun thing to do, from what I can recall we all had to be inside a white, silver or red car and we had to pass through certain parts of Metro Manila ( and Old Manila)-in some parts we had to circle a landmark three times! We were a big group of friends and even my mom was game enough to participate. The last "stop" was at the Mandarin Hotel ( surprise surprise) and there was a dragon dance and a buffet ( that you had to pay for) and a gazillion people. In fact, just the people on the road doing the route was already a lot. Not sure if that year turned out to be particularly lucky but I had fun and my friends had fun and that's enough happy energy to make any year good right?

This year though is "my" year, being born in the year of the Rat. I had been invited by Joy Lim, proprietor of Charms and Crystals to her condo to celebrate the Eve of Chinese New Year. Apparently she only invites certain clients, family and friends to partake of a specially prepared selection of food ( each have their own meaning) and rituals to welcome in 2008. We started out writing our wishes on wishing paper and folding 8 pieces of lucky money. These would all be burned in a big fire in front of the altar of dieties on the roofdeck of the condo. As we started throwing our wishes and money into the fire (lit by three sticks of sandalwood incense that were also later placed in front of the altar) the fireworks started at the stroke of midnight Joy explained would "open" up the heavens since the next step was to write our wishes on red balloons that would be released (all at the same time) and would now "enter" the opened heavens. Pretty cool huh? Almost everyone was in red and the wishing writing was pretty much a frenzy but you could tell that everyone had hope in their hearts and were really praying for a much better new year.

"About 80% of wishes come true" winked Joy to her guests and she started handing out lucky money in red ampao envelopes "You keep this in your wallet so you will attract wealth" were her instructions. I now have a bright red and gold envelope sticking out of my wallet, who knows right? Am not going to complain if my bank statements reveal more $$$ in the coming months.

So to everyone who believes in Feng Shui or thinks this is all Feng-phooey, I would like to wish you all a very, very Gong Xi Fa Cai!