A tale of two new years and a happy lunar new year of rooster to all of you!

There have been some posts regarding the coming Chinese/Lunar New Year (of Rooster [雞], out of the twelve animals). Jan 27 is the New Year's Eve (除夕) so it is really coming soon. I will leave Taipei and go south to where my parents are to spend the most of the holidays (which is 6 days long) there. So probably I won't post anything during the coming week and it is a custom here to greet to friends at work before the holidays ... So, to all Steemians ... 

I wish all of you and your family a fruitful crypto new year! and all the best to Steemit and the Steem blockchain (they are different! didn't you read the 2017 roadmap?)

This post does more than a greeting. 

I am sure many friends from the cn community have already or will soon explain and share what Chinese (yeah, Taiwanese is also Chinese culturally) people do during this period of time. So I won't do that. Instead, I am going to share with you, probably many of my cn friends are also unaware of this, how lucky we, who have CNY, are to have actually two new years, one from the west and one being our own. I will try to explain it in the case of Taiwan's CNY and I am pretty sure anywhere else (especially mainland China) that have CNY will pretty much have similar feelings.

Ok. So you have two new years, just two holidays, no big deal. Oh, no, no, no...

Instead of two new years, I would prefer the expression that we have a 40-50 days new year period in a year!!

It all begins with the Christmas, 

yeah, the holidays from the West, which we know very little about St. Nicholas but a lot about special sales by the white-bearded grandpa. It is near the end of a year where everyone is expecting to take a rest and wrap up the whole year's hard work. Really doesn't matter who that guy is. It might not be a real holiday in Taiwan but still everyone can feel the mood, especially the younger generations.

Then the calendar New Year comes! In a way you can say it is western influence, but almost everyone on Earth now is under this calendar. So in a way it is New year for everyone and it is also official holidays in Taiwan. You can still feel a lot of new year's feelings or actions around ... like you might need to pay a new kind of tax, avoid a new kind of criminal act newly defined by new laws, spend all your accumulated bonus points from certain reward program (yeah, I spent all my ibon points in 7-11 to get like 20 black coffee vouchers)... Anyway, you have a holiday, and you need to set yourself up for a coming new 365 days. 

But it is not really the New Year in our minds... 

The New Year (CNY) will only come roughly 30-40 days after the calendarly phony new year arrives. Viola!! now you have got yourself a New Year Period. You go to work, live your daily lives, water your garden, drink your daily beer, log in to your pathetic virtual blogging with rewards website, ... yeah, life as usual. But you know it is coming soon. The one with firecrackers, red envelops (with also pathetic, the more the better, fiat money in it), feasts after feasts, gambling every night, visiting friends and relatives, go to the movies or outdoors, all you can eat alcohol and snacks and sleep as long as you please.... oh, yeah, the dreamy new year! So you probably won't work with good efficiency, drink a little bit more beer than you should, and a little lay back here and a little new year planning with friends there... And finally it comes...

CNY, yeah, you know how it works so I will skip this fantastic part. Google it. 

If you think this is over when the holidays end, then you are really mistaken. Don't ever underestimate the strong will behind the ancient Chinese farmers to take a really long rest, like really really long. We can the first day of the CNY Chu-yi (yi means first) and it goes on at least until Chu-shiwu (the 15th day) and that day is set to be the Lantern Festival (元宵節) and it is nicknamed little New Year (小過年). Hooray!! New Year all over again!!! It is also a national holiday and people carry lanterns around to celebrate. 

If you think this is the end to the Chinese New Year...

Yeah, that's pretty much it. How much longer do you expect!? You cannot celebrate a new year with a whole year, you know that!? So, finish anything you miss doing in this short version of CNY and call it a New Year. Enough about New Years... 

Let me enter the year!!!  :)

大家好啊！雞年馬上要到了，周邊朋友同事都已經逐漸進入過節模式，新年氣氛越來越濃，就連這Steemit上面都開始越來越多相關照片文章！我馬上要南下回老家過年了，發這文章可能是下週唯一吧，過年總是挺忙的！在此先跟各位拜早年，前面跟大家分享的是我們常常沒有意識到，中國人/華人的新年，其實是從聖誕節就悄悄熱身了，到新曆年的元旦，放放煙火，有點氣氛，但真正的重頭戲，大家都知道還得一個月後。

這段時間，其實很有一種等待過節的氣氛，工作效率可能也不會太好，開始跟家人朋友規劃過年要去哪裡玩之類的。算一算這段時間也長達30-40天，更別說還有個元宵節小過年讓你不會錯過任何過年想做的事，中國年真是太過夢幻了！當然，我知道你們很多人卡在上有老父母下有孩子的階段，過年其實反而很辛苦的，但這是另一個話題了，過年還是挺讓人期待的啊！

照片是2011年在台灣苗栗辦的元宵燈會，順道分享給大家。明年見了！:)

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR TO YOU AND I AM GOING HOLIDAYS NOW!!! 

祝大家新春如意、掌握仙雞、賭錢必贏、買幣必漲！

photos are original from 2011 lantern festival of Taiwan.