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How To Use Chopsticks

One of the many interesting cultural aspects of dining in Taiwan, or many other Asian countries for that matter, is that people use chopsticks to eat. Everyone has seen chopsticks and knows what they are, but not everyone can use them. I remember many years ago when I first saw chopsticks(years before even moving to Taiwan) my initial thought was "How the heck do I eat with these!" So today, I will show you in 5 easy steps.

Step 1: Pick up a pair of chopsticks. In Mandarin, chopsticks are called kuàizi(筷子).

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Step 2: Place the end of one of the chopsticks on the webbing between your thumb and pointer finger, and support the other end with your pinky and ring finger. While you are eating, this chopstick will not be moving.

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Step 3: Now take the other chopstick and grip it with your thumb on one side and your pointer and middle finger on the other. This is the chopstick you will be actively controlling to eat with.

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Step 4: Now that you know how to hold them, it's time to make those chopsticks work for you! It's very simple and you should get the hang of it pretty quickly. Keep the first chopstick stable resting against your pinky and ring finger and across the webbing between your thumb and pointer finger, and use the other chopstick to pick up food by moving your middle and index finger. Think of it as a tiny lever and fulcrum.

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(The way I usually eat with chopsticks is to hold the two sticks parallel to each other)

Step 5: Now that you've got it down, all you need to do is keep practicing. Now go eat some Chinese food. Forks are forbidden!

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(Another way to use chopsticks, and the one favored by my fiance, is to hold them with the sticks crossing. The grip and controlling chopstick are the same, you are just picking up the food in a different way. Think scissors.)

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Chinese phrases of the day:

kuàizi(筷子)= chopsticks

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Bada-danbing!

Okay, so I have to take a minute to rave about my latest addiction…no, it\’s not anything bad, except maybe a little for my waistline. And the culprit is shūcàidànbǐng(蔬菜蛋餅)!

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(The stand I always go to in the Zhongyuan Night Market in Zhongli City. Let\’s take a look behind the scenes.)

Like the classic Taiwanese breakfast food, dànbǐng(蛋餅) which is like an omelet, only injected with steroids(not literally I hope, but they are seriously like 5 times the size of your regular dànbǐng(蛋餅)!), these babies will keep you coming back for more! This growing chain of stands is popping up all over the place, and with good reason. With flavors such as tuna wěiyú(鮪魚), barbecue kǎoròu(烤肉), beef niúròu(牛肉), corn yùmǐ(玉米),cheese with bacon qǐsīpéigēn(起司培根), ham huǒtuǐ(火腿) and more, you won\’t get sick of eating them, just try a new flavor each time!

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(Let\’s see how it tastes….)

One of the reasons I love shūcàidànbǐng(蔬菜蛋餅) is that each one comes stuffed with cabbage, so you\’re getting a balanced meal all in one package(or at least I like to think so!). Actually, the only thing I really don\’t like about this stand is that the food is really popular and I always have to wait in line (waiting in line is just part of life in Taiwan, but I\’m an impatient American and I want my dànbǐng(蛋餅) immediately!).

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(You can tell by the look on my face that it tastes awesome!)

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Chinese phrases of the day:

shūcàidànbǐng(蔬菜蛋餅)= vegetable Chinese omelet
dànbǐng(蛋餅)= Chinese omelet
wěiyú(鮪魚)= tuna
kǎoròu(烤肉)= barbecue
niúròu(牛肉)= beef
yùmǐ(玉米)= corn
qǐsī(起司)= cheese
péigēn(培根)= bacon
huǒtuǐ(火腿)= ham

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Posted on

Blown Away

\"DSC08312\"

Is what my fiancé, Ruby and I nearly were this past Wednesday when we went to the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Linkou. This is the largest hospital with the best equipment and facilities in Taiwan. You can get there very easily from many places, including the San Chung Bus that you can take from the Kuo Kuang bus stop located near the Taipei Main Station just out the South entrance and across the street to the right. The ticket costs around 40NT$ and it's about a forty minute ride (depending on traffic of course). But we live in Zhongli, so we took a cab to the shuttle bus on Zhong Yang E. Rd. In front of the 7-11 and hopped on. The bus-ride is about thirty to forty minutes long, depending on traffic and the fare is 35NT$ per person.

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(A view of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital from afar taken from http://www1.cgmh.org.tw)

One interesting thing about hospitals in Taiwan, and hotels for that matter, is that they never have a fourth floor. Their floors go like this: one, two, three and then they skip to five. Now we all know that Chinese have a reputation for being good at math, right? So what the heck's going on here? Well, as I wrote about a while back, Chinese people are very superstitious, and a lot of their superstitions stem from how words can sound like other words very easily in Mandarin (Believe me, just try saying forty-four stone lions without screwing the whole thing up and you'll thing Sandy and her seashells are a joke!). The word four, or sì(四) sounds very close to the word sǐ(死) which means death! So would you want to get operated on on the forth floor? I didn't think so? Moving on. So, despite it being a Typhoon Day, Ruby and I were at the hospital for her surgery(a very minor and routine procedure, so calm down already!). She had already booked her appointment, and I had taken the day off from work to accompany her. It was a quick visit and we hit up the hospital's food court, or měishíjiē(美食街) for lunch after she was fineshed. She had beef noodle soup (broth without the beef chunks) niúròutāngmiàn(牛肉湯麵) and I had Subway. Are you kidding me? Yes we have Subway in Taiwan! Bellies full and feeling satisfied with the trip, we headed back to the shuttle bus to Zhongli…or we tried to! Somehow or another we got turned around in the hospital's maze-like corridors and ended up leaving by another entrance. Rather than going back the way we had just come, we decided to walk around the building to the bus stop. We hadn't gone a hundred feet before it started raining down hard. Another few feet and our umbrella was broken by the strong winds. It sucked, but strangely, even though we were being pelted like there was no tomorrow, our reaction was to laugh. Seriously, it felt like the rain was punching us!

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("Momma said knock you out"-LL Cool J)

We eventually made our way around the building, but rather than finding the shuttle bus waiting to take us home, we were back where we had started out from! It was too ridiculous a situation to get mad about, so we went back in and squeezed as much water out of our clothes as we could in the bathrooms, then we did what we should have done in the first place. We went back through the basement level of the hospital and eventually found the bus terminal and got in line. Cold and wet, with the bus's AC blowing in our faces, we made ourselves as comfortable as we were able and we took the forty minute trip back to Zhongli. Once we had arrived, we got off the bus, took a cab back to the house, followed by a hot shower and then a two hour nap! Adventures are tiring!

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Chinese phrases of the day:

sì(四)= four

sǐ(死)= death/die

měishíjiē(美食街)= food court

niúròutāngmiàn(牛肉湯麵)= beef noodle soup (no beef chunks, just soup and noodles) ———————————————————————————————————————————

Posted on

Look Who\’s Talking

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Alright, so for today's post, I want to share a little of my experience learning Mandarin with you. When I first came to Taiwan I could only speak three phrases: nǐhǎo你好, nǐhǎoma你好嗎？and xièxie謝謝. That was all. Was I particularly good at communicating with the locals right of the bat? Nope. Am I now? Yep. But it didn't happen over night.

In a few of my previous articles I mentioned that I spent my first year in Taiwan in the harbor city of Keelung. I lived about five minutes from the coast and there was no lack of beautiful scenery. Needless to say it was a big change from Texas! But this post is not about Keelung specifically. It's about learning Chinese! Living in Keelung was, in my opinion, essential to my acquisition of Chinese. The reason for this is quite simple. In a big international city like Taipei, people are used to dealing with foreigners and it is completely possible to get around solely speaking English. This is not the case in the countryside. Though many people I came into daily contact with in Keelung very likely could speak a relatively decent amount of English, they simply lacked the confidence to speak in English with a foreigner (though of course there are exceptions, I'm just making this generalization to get my point across).

So what did I do? Well, I got on Tealit.com and found myself a tutor and made the trek out to Taipei twice a week to learn with a native speaker, one-on-one. But as I lived in Keelung, the lessons didn't end after my classes finished, I went out and made a point to try and converse with the local people as much as I could(be it ordering food at a restaurant, or just trying to chat up my neighbors). Was it easy in the beginning? Heck no, but I kept trying and within three months or so my conversational ability was decent, though certainly lacking in many areas.

After having lived in Taiwan for around eight months, I met my fiancé and saw a sudden improvement in my Chinese almost overnight. It's really convenient having a walking, breathing dictionary with you, though she might not agree! Anyway, after we'd been together for a while and my contract was up with my school, I decided to move to Taipei and study Chinese intensively at NTNU for a semester. I took a trip to Thailand to do some sightseeing and switch over to a student visa, then I came back and took the university's placement test, which consisted of a reading comprehension and speaking portion. I scored very well on the speaking test, but since I hadn't practiced much reading or writing my first year, I did considerably worse on this portion. Still, my speaking was proficient enough that I tested out of the first text book, and half of the second. I want to make it clear that I am not bragging, I just had the benefit of living in an environment very conducive to learning conversational Mandarin.

After my semester as a student, I once again started teaching English, and continued my Mandarin studies independently. I've made a lot of progress over the last five years, but I'm still learning new phrases all the time. Which brings me to the point of this post, I am working on a FREE Mandarin course that I will be starting to upload very soon here on my blog. My approach to teaching/learning is different from the popular method of memorizing grammar rules and sentence patterns. This was never the best approach for me, and my philosophy has developed over the past five years, but you can start benefitting from it immediately! I'll be making updates on the status of the Language Lab in the weeks to follow, so please bear with me for the time being and of course, I'd love to hear any suggestions you have for how this program can work best for you. I'll also be posting tips on how to improve your Mandarin that I have learned through my own experience. Gǎnxiè感謝大家！

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Chinese phrases of the day:
 
 
你好= hello
 
你好嗎?= How are you?
 
謝謝= thank you
感謝大家= to show appreciation for everyone

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Posted on

Look Who\’s Talking

\"IMG_5573\" \"IMG_5574\"

Alright, so for today's post, I want to share a little of my experience learning Mandarin with you. When I first came to Taiwan I could only speak three phrases: nǐhǎo你好, nǐhǎoma你好嗎？and xièxie謝謝. That was all. Was I particularly good at communicating with the locals right of the bat? Nope. Am I now? Yep. But it didn't happen over night.

In a few of my previous articles I mentioned that I spent my first year in Taiwan in the harbor city of Keelung. I lived about five minutes from the coast and there was no lack of beautiful scenery. Needless to say it was a big change from Texas! But this post is not about Keelung specifically. It's about learning Chinese! Living in Keelung was, in my opinion, essential to my acquisition of Chinese. The reason for this is quite simple. In a big international city like Taipei, people are used to dealing with foreigners and it is completely possible to get around solely speaking English. This is not the case in the countryside. Though many people I came into daily contact with in Keelung very likely could speak a relatively decent amount of English, they simply lacked the confidence to speak in English with a foreigner (though of course there are exceptions, I'm just making this generalization to get my point across).

So what did I do? Well, I got on Tealit.com and found myself a tutor and made the trek out to Taipei twice a week to learn with a native speaker, one-on-one. But as I lived in Keelung, the lessons didn't end after my classes finished, I went out and made a point to try and converse with the local people as much as I could(be it ordering food at a restaurant, or just trying to chat up my neighbors). Was it easy in the beginning? Heck no, but I kept trying and within three months or so my conversational ability was decent, though certainly lacking in many areas.

After having lived in Taiwan for around eight months, I met my fiancé and saw a sudden improvement in my Chinese almost overnight. It's really convenient having a walking, breathing dictionary with you, though she might not agree! Anyway, after we'd been together for a while and my contract was up with my school, I decided to move to Taipei and study Chinese intensively at NTNU for a semester. I took a trip to Thailand to do some sightseeing and switch over to a student visa, then I came back and took the university's placement test, which consisted of a reading comprehension and speaking portion. I scored very well on the speaking test, but since I hadn't practiced much reading or writing my first year, I did considerably worse on this portion. Still, my speaking was proficient enough that I tested out of the first text book, and half of the second. I want to make it clear that I am not bragging, I just had the benefit of living in an environment very conducive to learning conversational Mandarin.

After my semester as a student, I once again started teaching English, and continued my Mandarin studies independently. I've made a lot of progress over the last five years, but I'm still learning new phrases all the time. Which brings me to the point of this post, I am working on a FREE Mandarin course that I will be starting to upload very soon here on my blog. My approach to teaching/learning is different from the popular method of memorizing grammar rules and sentence patterns. This was never the best approach for me, and my philosophy has developed over the past five years, but you can start benefitting from it immediately! I'll be making updates on the status of the Language Lab in the weeks to follow, so please bear with me for the time being and of course, I'd love to hear any suggestions you have for how this program can work best for you. I'll also be posting tips on how to improve your Mandarin that I have learned through my own experience. Gǎnxiè感謝大家！

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Chinese phrases of the day:
 
 
你好= hello
 
你好嗎?= How are you?
 
謝謝= thank you
感謝大家= to show appreciation for everyone

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Posted on

Rain Rain Go Away!

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With a typhoon set to arrive tomorrow you can count on heavy rains and strong winds through Thursday. In fact, even though it has yet to arrive, we already felt the influence of the typhoon on the weather. Seriously, it rained cats and dogs today! But typhoons, or táifēng(颱風) are just an ordinary part of life on the island that you must learn to cope with if you plan to spend any length of time here. I'm just glad I don't live in Keelung anymore! Expats and locals alike are(or should be) stockpiling food, drinks and various other necessities to get them through the next few days, so get on that if you haven't already! Seriously, if you go to an RT Mart, A Mart, Carrefour or Costco at the last minute, you will be stuck with what you can get, which is usually just about nothing! So, to make sure that my readers are well prepared for their coming Typhoon Day(they're practically like national holidays here, hence the capital letters) I have prepared a short list of a few essentials you shouldn't be without when the milk tea hits the fan.

Typhoon Day Survival Kit:

1. As many packages of instant noodles pāomiàn(泡麵) as you can grab
2. A loaf of bread miànbāo(麵包)and some PB&J huāshēngjiànghéguǒdòng(花生醬和果凍)
3. Packages of dried food: cookies, chips, bǐnggān(併港) etc.
4. A few gallons of drinking water, and or any tea or sodas you may want to have on hand
5. A flashlight and extra batteries diànchí(電池) just incase you lose power, and candles wouldn't be a bad idea either
6. A basic first aid kit just in case
7. A stack of DVDs, I'll let you choose which ones(see, aren't I nice)

If you are a hardened veteran, having come out victorious over countless typhoons, then you probably already know it all, but if this will be your first typhoon, make sure you're prepared!
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Chinese phrases of the day:

táifēng(颱風)= typhoon
pāomiàn(泡麵)= instant noodles
miànbāo(麵包)= bread
huāshēngjiàng(花生醬)= peanut butter
hé(和)= and
guǒdòng(果凍)= jelly
bǐnggān(餅乾)= cookies, chips
diànchí(電池)= batteries

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Posted on

Out of all the places in the world…

Being fair of skin, with a healthy serving of freckles and a side of strawberry-blonde hair, I think it's safe to say that you may notice me waiting in line in a crowded night market or making my way through the throngs of people at a bustling MRT station, which in my opinion is just about as chaotic as a kicked anthill. Among a flock of black-haired sheep I'm not exactly hard to pick out…okay, so I stick out like a sore thumb, happy now?

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(Fear me puny Earthlings!)
 
 
To tell the truth though, I have been living here so long, I feel like it's home, and it's easy for me to forget that I am different here. That is until I see a toddler staring at me on the train like he's just seen Marvin the Martian. And then there's my students, who like to stroke my arm hair…it makes me feel like a pet! Funny story, I once taught a kid who called me a golden monkey because of my blonde-hair! But I digress.
 
"Why did you come toTaiwan?" is a question I have heard countless times, in fact it is likely the most common question I get when I meet anyone for the first time over here. And I still don't have a good answer; in short, it's a long story.
 
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I first came to Taiwan shortly after graduating from college, and at that time I really had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had a bachelors in education, and I had always loved traveling and learning about foreign cultures and languages. So I decided to spend a year abroad. But not in Taiwan.
Originally I had looked into living abroad in Ireland, as I have always wanted a chance to further explore my own cultural roots, and I had been to Europe and really liked the atmosphere. But that was a no-go. As it turned out, I wasn't able to get the teaching job I had looked into because I lacked a European passport. Oh well, back to the old drawing board.
 
 
Not long after my Ireland bubble burst, I started talking with a friend who also wanted to live abroad and teach English for a year, and we settled on Japan. We filled out online-applications and waited eagerly for our phone-interview. After getting off the phone with the recruiter, I felt excited and I knew this was what I was looking for. After preparing a lesson and waiting impatiently for the big day, a few weeks later we met representatives from Japan who were in Austin, Tx to interview prospective teachers. I was really nervous, and the interview didn't go as I'd planned. My friend was accepted into the program, but I wasn't! Curses, foiled again!
 
 
So after getting turned down for he second time, I was pretty down. But to quote Chumbawamba, "I get knocked, down but I get up again.
You're never gonna keep me down." So I got up, dusted off my jacket and applied to another recruitment agency called Reach To Teach. This time I wanted to get a job teaching in China. I once again filled out an application and had an interview with one of the company's representatives. The interview went great and they started sending me job offers from several different schools right off the bat! I was feeling really good now, and ready to set out for my adventure! Well…not quite(see, I told you this was a long story!).
 
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(Hanging out in the teachers' room before class, still fresh off the boat!)
 
The first few schools that I had offers for didn't pan out, and eventually the agent I was working with told me of a school in Keelung, Taiwan that wanted to hire me…but where's that? Well, I did my research and read as much as I could about Taiwan and I decided that it sounded like a great place to spend a year abroad. I was emailed a contract, read it over, signed it and faxed it back. About a month later I said my goodbyes to friends and family and my dad drove me to the airport. I remember him telling me that I didn't have to go and nobody would think any less of me if I decided to stay in TX. It was tough, but I said goodbye and  boarded my flight. And little did I know I'd still be here nearly five years down the road!
 
 
Though the path I took to get here was long and winding, I believe that it all happened for a reason, and my life would not be the same today if I hadn't gotten on that airplane. I wouldn't have met my fiancé, Ruby or raised our dog, Popcorn and our cat, Pumpkin, nor made all of the wonderful friends I have here. When I came to Taiwan I was looking for something, I just didn't know what it was. But I found it!
 
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Posted on

Superstitious Me

Okay, so last week in my post These Boots were made for Walkin'! I introduced the topic of superstitions and their relevance in Chinese culture. Seriously, Chinese people make us Irish look like a rational bunch! Whether its passing under a ladder, or opening an umbrella indoors, I have always found superstitions to be quite interesting. Having spent around five years here in Taiwan, and being engaged to a Taiwanese woman, I have had the opportunity to learn of quite a few Chinese superstitions that most people may not be aware of. And be forewarned, many of them have to do with GHOSTS!

1. Whistle while you work!

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(Mickey doing what he does best found at fromscreentotheme.com)

One of the superstitions that I have had a hard time coping with, has been the taboo on whistling at night. The sound is thought to attract ghosts, and nobody wants that! Now, while I am a mature adult(at least most of the time!), and I am more than happy to conform to my host country's cultural beliefs and traditions, I honestly have a hard time with this as I often just whistle when I'm in a good mood! This bothered my fiancé when we first started dating, and I have tried my best to stop and rarely do so now, but hey, sometimes you just got to let your whistle blow!

2. Stick it to them!

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(Me playing with my chopsticks after watching Wolverine….Sweet!)

…Or don't. One of the most culturally relevant superstitions to Chinese people, is that sticking your chopsticks end-up in your bowl of rice is bad luck. This was something that I was surprised to see in the new Wolverine movie (watch it, because it's wolverine, bub, nuf said) when I watched it the other day, though I suppose i shouldn't have been surprised considering how much cultural exchange there has been between China and Japan for centuries (though I admittedly know little of Japanese cultural traditions). The reason this is taboo is because in Chinese funerals Incense sticks are burned, and the chopsticks look quite similar to these. So proper table etiquette is to place your chopsticks lengthwise across your bowl.

3. Tic-Toc-Tic-Toc!

\"DALI-CLOCKS-MELTING\"

(One of my all time favorite paintings by Salvador Dali taken from www.greatdreams.com)

Okay, so as I promised here is the reason why you don't give clocks as gifts in Chinese culture. The reason is that to give someone a clock in Mandarin or sòngzhōng(送鐘) sounds like sòngzhōng(送終) which is when you go to pay your respects to a dead relative or friend (like to attend their funeral). So if you give someone a clock for a present, it's like you want them to die! Not something you do for a friend, but if you hate someone, then I guess it's okay…cmon, I'm just kidding alright? Don't do it, PERIOD!

I hope that you found this article informative, and if you knew everything already, then at least entertaining. Rest assured, I have not exhausted my repertoire of superstitions, so look for a future post to learn even more ways to annoy your Chinese friends!

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Chinese phrases of the day:

sòng(送)= give

shízhōng(時鐘)= clock

sòngzhōng(送終)= literally give an end; pay your respects for a friend or relative at their funeral

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Posted on

Happy belated Valentine\’s Day!

I know what you're thinking, this guy must be out of his mind, Valentine's Day was six months ago! Hey, I'm not the brightest, but of course I know that!

 
Western Valentine's Day qíngrénjiē(情人節) is celebrated on February 14th every year, but there is also a Chinese equivalent to Valentine's Day which was August 13th this year.
The dates which Chinese festivals fall on can be very confusing, because they are determined by the traditional lunar calendar.
 
So, aside from the difference in date between Chinese Valentine's Day and Western Valentine's Day, the origins are also quite different. The origins of Chinese Valentine's Day qīxī(七夕) lie in ancient Chinese Mythology. The story of The Weaver girl and the Cowherd is a tragic story of two lovers who were not allowed to be together.
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(An illustration of Zhīnǚ(織女) and Niúláng(牛郎) crossing the bridge of magpies to meet each other from http://tupian.baike.com)
 
While there is more than one version of the tale (I won't go into too many specifics, but you can find more details on Wikipedia),They all agree that a weaver girl Zhīnǚ(織女) and a cowherd Niúláng(牛郎) met and fell deeply in love with one another, married and had children. But they were separated, each stuck on one side of the river (represented by the Milky Way) unable to reach the other (the reason differs from version to version) and consequently only allowed to meet each other for one night each year, the seventh night of the seventh moon(hence the name for the festival is qīxī(七夕) or the seventh night of the seventh lunar month).
\"_\"
(A picture of the bridge that allows the two lovers to meet once per year from http://skyonforest.blogspot.tw)
 
 
Qīxī(七夕) is celebrated much the same as Valentine's Day is in the West. It is a time when lovers give each other gifts and spend time together.
 
 
A popular traditional belief is that it must rain on Qīxī(七夕). My fiancé and I spent the evening at her parents house, and at one point it started to rain quite heavily. My future mother-in-law looked up from her book and said that it was Zhīnǚ(織女) crying. I hope that they were tears of joy at her being reunited with Niúláng(牛郎)!
 

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Chinese phrases of the day:

qíngrénjiē(情人節)= Valentine's Day

qīxī(七夕)= Chinese Valentine's Day, or the seventh night of the seventh lunar month

Zhīnǚ(織女)= Weaver girl

Niúláng(牛郎)= Cowherd

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Posted on

Happy belated Valentine\’s Day!

I know what you're thinking, this guy must be out of his mind, Valentine's Day was six months ago! Hey, I'm not the brightest, but of course I know that!

 
Western Valentine's Day qíngrénjiē(情人節) is celebrated on February 14th every year, but there is also a Chinese equivalent to Valentine's Day which was August 13th this year.
The dates which Chinese festivals fall on can be very confusing, because they are determined by the traditional lunar calendar.
 
So, aside from the difference in date between Chinese Valentine's Day and Western Valentine's Day, the origins are also quite different. The origins of Chinese Valentine's Day qīxī(七夕) lie in ancient Chinese Mythology. The story of The Weaver girl and the Cowherd is a tragic story of two lovers who were not allowed to be together.
\"01300000280411125084401530386\"
(An illustration of Zhīnǚ(織女) and Niúláng(牛郎) crossing the bridge of magpies to meet each other from http://tupian.baike.com)
 
While there is more than one version of the tale (I won't go into too many specifics, but you can find more details on Wikipedia),They all agree that a weaver girl Zhīnǚ(織女) and a cowherd Niúláng(牛郎) met and fell deeply in love with one another, married and had children. But they were separated, each stuck on one side of the river (represented by the Milky Way) unable to reach the other (the reason differs from version to version) and consequently only allowed to meet each other for one night each year, the seventh night of the seventh moon(hence the name for the festival is qīxī(七夕) or the seventh night of the seventh lunar month).
\"_\"
(A picture of the bridge that allows the two lovers to meet once per year from http://skyonforest.blogspot.tw)
 
 
Qīxī(七夕) is celebrated much the same as Valentine's Day is in the West. It is a time when lovers give each other gifts and spend time together.
 
 
A popular traditional belief is that it must rain on Qīxī(七夕). My fiancé and I spent the evening at her parents house, and at one point it started to rain quite heavily. My future mother-in-law looked up from her book and said that it was Zhīnǚ(織女) crying. I hope that they were tears of joy at her being reunited with Niúláng(牛郎)!
 

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Chinese phrases of the day:

qíngrénjiē(情人節)= Valentine's Day

qīxī(七夕)= Chinese Valentine's Day, or the seventh night of the seventh lunar month

Zhīnǚ(織女)= Weaver girl

Niúláng(牛郎)= Cowherd

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