ക RÉNRI ( 人日 ) ~ Human Day, 7th Day of CNY

Happy Birthday Everybody.. Renrì (Chinese:人日, literally Human Day) falls on the 7th day of zhengyue 正月 aka Chinese New Year, the first month in the Chinese calendar). According to legend, the custom dates back to the Han Dynasty, and gained importance after The Three Kingdoms period and Jin Dynasty. Hence, Chinese tradition set the first day of zhengyue as the "birthday" of chicken, the second day of zhengyue as the birthday of dog, etc. And the seventh day of zhengyue is viewed as the common "birthday" of all human beings. On this special "birthday" Yúshēng is often served as part of a multi-dish dinner, usually as the appetizer due to...

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ക The Good, Bad & Ugly of Chinese New Year?

The highest temperature registered in the Year of the Tiger on CNY Day III was at 36°C. Even the tigers need to cool off in the scorching weather. We all have been talking about CNY happy this happy that and now the grand Day has passed into the 5th day, see how time flies. Hope all have had a great time with families since the eve of CNY with reunion dinner, catching up with old friends and made tons of money with lady luck game of cards etc. When comes to CNY everything we say must be in a positive note. We are not supposed to say foul words and the word "death" is strictly & extremely a No-No and should not be uttered at all. Seems like...

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ക Chinese New Year Prodigy Rapper

The notorious Malaysian prodigy rapper, Namewee is at his 'mischievous' behavior again competing with the traditional CNY greeting songs with rap. Nicknamed the 'Bad Boy of Rap' shot to 'fame' with his controversial songs and videos few years ago who almost ended himself in the hot soup. Sorry translation unavailable and its in Mandarin so those not familiar with the language bear with me this time around. Perhaps action speaks louder than words and can roughly guess and imagine the styles of the new and rebellious generation would portray how they would prefer CNY songs to be sung than those traditional tung tung chiang. He rapped that the...

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ക Zàijiàn 再見 Farewell 'Banana' Panda ~ Tai Shan

Tai Shan 泰山 {Tài Shān}, aka Butterstick because of its size like a stick of butter just after his birth as described by a zoo worker. He is a giant panda born at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park (National Zoo) in Washington, D.C on July 9, 2005 at 3:41 AM. The name Tai Shan, meaning "peaceful mountain," was chosen after it won 44 percent of the 202,045 total votes cast. Tai Shan in June 2007, courtesy of Wikipedia According to Wikipedia as per the agreement with China, the Chinese government can require that Tai Shan be sent to China any time after he turns 2 as he, like his parents, is the property of China. (His parents Mei Xiang and...

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ക TELLING THE TIME : Colloquial

Most of the time I would like to dig right through deeply to "Why Ask Why" on certain mundane words that we used. I wonder why we Chinese say " 等一下 {děng yī xià} ~ wait one time " the equivalent to English's "wait a minute". In the olden Chinese ghost movies if you can recall there is this time keeper who walks around the town after midnite holding a lantern, a gong and a log of bamboo. He will beat the bamboo a few times followed by the gong a few times. Just out of curiosity how on earth this time keeper knows the time to tell the time? Most probably from the astronomical clock built by Su Song & Han Gong-Lian in 1088 A.D. during the Northern...

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