ON THE 13TH DAY (十三)
Wrapping up 2026 CNY celebrations.
Originally I wanted to host my CNY friend party on the 21st of February. This would've been the Fifth Day (大年初五) of the lunar new year, which according to this post:
It is the day to honor the God of Wealth (財神), for good fortune to come.
There is a saying that we should not leave the house for too long on the fifth day of the new year, just in case the God of Wealth pays a visit to the family.
(破五) There is also a saying that it is the day to break the five bad lucks on intelligence (智窮), learning ability (學窮), literacy (文窮), life (命窮), and relationship (交窮). People will get up early today to clean up the house, and light up firecrackers, all in the wish to discard the five bad lucks away.
Some will use the day to visit friends and classmates.
In the Nüwa legend, today is the Birthday of Ox.
But that day didn't work out for my friends, so we celebrated on the Thirteenth Day (十三) instead:
The old song continues to say today is the day to put up the lighting decorations for the Lantern Festival.
Some say today is the day Emperor Guan (關帝爺) became one of the gods.
In some regions, the day is also the day of lightbulbs. People would light up lights by the kitchen stove (点灶灯)
My favorite is the Sixth Day (大年初六):
Some regions say the feast and celebration should end by now, and people should be ready to return to work.
Some will use the day to visit temples, relatives, and friends.
A legend says the God of Bathrooms (厕所神) will pay a visit to check on the sanitary condition, so people would use this day to clean their bathrooms.
Another legend says the day is to send away the Ghost of Poverty (穷鬼). People will usually throw away their ragged clothes and other dirty things to send him away.
In the Nüwa legend, today is the Birthday of the Horse.
I think these rituals are really a reminder to take care of your spring cleaning before and after hosting a party, and I'm all for it. You best bet that on the sixth day I made sure we took out the trash to banish the Ghost of Poverty.
March 1st
Since it was a Sunday, I thought it best to have lunch together so everyone could have an evening at home to rest and recharge before Monday. And because I had a long day of choir rehearsal the day before, I bought frozen food. I enjoy hosting and I also believe that I should't break my back to try to be a good host.* I want to have fun too! And for me, being fed and spending time together is what's important. I'll have plenty more chances to cook from scratch again.
*I was once called out for being too chill of a host! According to my friend's culture, a good host waits on their guests and even eats standing in the kitchen. They're not supposed to partake in the party. XD Yeahh I'm not doing any of that. My house, my rules!
Steaming setup in the kitchen. (Dumplings boiling in the back.)
I bought dim sum which I prepared in my bamboo steamer. This setup worked well. Usually you're supposed to steam this in a wok, but my wok is not properly seasoned so it will rust immediately. This pan did the trick. I also learned to always have boiling water ready to top up when the water gets low to ensure consistent steam.
I forgot to get a close-up shot of the other dim sum. They were much prettier! This is just shumai.
I normally try to push a theme when it comes to the food, but since it was a Sunday lunch I told people to just bring something, particularly with vegetables to balance out the meat and carbs I was providing. N and V brought fattoush (salad) and fatayer (spinach pastry).
From top to bottom: Assorted dim sum, pork and chinese leaf dumplings, fatayer.
For dessert, I baked my FOTM cookies the night before. The flavor for February was Chinese 5 spice! This was actually round 2, which I'll write about in a separate post. My friends commented that it tasted like Lebkuchen, i.e. German gingerbread.
Chinese 5 spice cookies with dark chocolate.
We watched some YouTube videos, chatted, and then played two board games:
✦ Team 3, where 3 people work together to build a structure, but the "architect" can't talk, the "project manager" can't hear, and the "builder" can't see. It was fun and I built up a sweat as the architect from gesturing animately.
✦ Tummple, which is like Jenga but with more restrictions. I sat this one out because I just wanted to watch and rest my brain.
I loved that my friends left at 17:00 on the dot. As much as I enjoy hanging out, I really enjoy having time to myself.
Lantern Festival
The Fifteenth Day (十五) of Chinese New Year is the Lantern Festival:
(元宵節) Lantern Festival
A traditional solve-a-riddle game called 猜燈謎, where players need to solve the riddles written on the lanterns in order to get the lantern.
It is one of the Chinese Valentine’s Day. It is said that back in the old days, when women were barely able to leave the house, Lantern Festival was a day they could go out to light up lanterns and to meet people.
It marks the first full moon after the lunar new year started and marks the celebration’s completion.
I didn't know about the last two points, but I recently learned about point number 2 from my Taiwanese tutor. She gave me some riddles to solve during our call last week. Surprisingly, I got them right! (They were in Mandarin.)
You're also supposed to eat tangyuan, which are glutinous rice balls traditionally eaten in a sweet soup. Growing up I really disliked it. I didn't like the texture and it tastes like nothing. Plus I don't like sweet soup, unless it's a sago pudding or something.
I had planned to boil the remaining tangyuan we accidentally bought† and heat up the frozen taiyaki that we forgot to bring out during the lunch party. Instead, we did none of that, because I had a physically exhausting day and just wanted a chill evening.
† I bought frozen tangyuan shaped like persimmons months ago, because I thought they were steamed buns. So I steamed them, and they exploded in the rice cooker. They were filled with sweet black sesame paste so it was tasty but really messy to eat.
So, we ate them this morning for breakfast.
You're supposed to eat whole fish during CNY (preferably the Eve of), so a meatless option for vegetarians would be to eat fish-shaped things, like pastries. These taiyaki are filled with red bean paste.
Persimmon-shaped tangyuan filled with black sesame paste.
I'm pretty pleased with how I celebrated CNY this year! It was fun learning more about the daily rituals, whether I intend to practice them in the future or not. I do like the cleaning rituals, because as a messy person, it was nice to have a clean home and also not have to spend so much time cleaning before friends came over. So I think I'll keep up with those.
Next time, I will call it Spring Festival because that's what it's called in Mandarin Chinese, and I noticed Chinese people call it Spring Festival and not Chinese New Year. Also, Vietnamese and Korean people also celebrate Lunar New Year, and we call them by their respective names—Tết and Seollal. So I think it'd be cool to use the actual name. Next level would be to call it 春節 (Chūnjié).