Chinese New Year-The Year of the Golden Pig

Every 60 years every sign in chinese Zodiac is "big", this is such year for Pig. And as pig is generally considered to be an lucky sign, this is even more lucky. Chinese are crazy about money-in a bit different way than Westerners. It is really a symbol of success itself. Celebration of the New Year is all week enterprise, with known duties for some of these days. It all is not at all so different from Christian customs for Christmas.

The actual celebration started with visit to hairdreser-something what every Chinese does at the end of the year. Funny custom, hairdresers earn last day of the year-and price is almost doubled.

The last day of the Year of the Dog, we met this one, interesting coincidence:

It was in the house of relatives of our friend, where we observed traditional Taiwanese New Year bai-bai (prey) to the gods of the house.
Here is the altar in one peasant house:

A bit closer:

Every god has its flag:

In the other house the family ancestors are presented near the altar:

Bai-bai IS serious matter for elderly people-younger are rather non-conformist. Parayer is to be repeated until the gods are satisfied. You ask: how do you know? Chinese mind is practical: they throw two wooden pieces on the floor, it is something as two sides of a coin. If they fall different side, means gods said OK. If they both fall side A, means gods are laughing, i.e. do it again. If both side B, means gods are angry, now you really have to take care how do you pray.
In this case some 5 times were needed, and older lady got quite nervous, and was inviting all the family members to gather in pray, as obviously gods were demanding it.

In front of the altar were such delicacies for gods:

This is specifically Chinese art, I believe...

Then they went out in the courtyard to burn some (false) money for souls of the ancestors

I also burnt some, you have to "count" it that the air would come between the leafs of paper, funny feeling

In the eve of the last day of old year, family dinner is to be presented, with some
traditonal dishes. We spent it with friend and her mother and brother. Here is traditional dinner.

This object I like, for cooking vegetables on the table. So Chinese!

Coming Home: Taiwan2

In Athens I managed to get rid of all my things from the apartment, just last evening before the flight, thanks to our former babysitter, who took ALL the things. Thanks, Magda! She helped to clean it up to the level that I had to sleep there last night in my sleeping bag on towels and some clothes, as I did not have any carimate, all are on Pag.

This is ALL I took with me to Tw-who did not try, should not think too much:

Last day view walkng towards the University, note the snow in the Immitos mountain behind.

I arrived Sunday at noon, with this Boeing777 to Bangkok and another one to Taipei.

On new Suvarnabhumi airport there are some etnographic elements, not only construction and organisational failures:

Taiwan2 started VERY friendly: my old landlords came to pick me all from Hsinchu to the airport. Really nice of them![The 1st time started also very friendly: Institute sent limousine for picking me :-)]
Meantime airport changed name, and it is not "Chiang-Kai Shek Airport", but "Taoyuen Airport", and not only this, "China Post Office" became "Taiwan post office"-with loud protests of lots of workers-half of people here are still rather not satisfied with this possibility of Taiwan independence.
Getting to work and meeting people there was really coming home :-). Little Japanese colony still there.
Pleasure of having all the technics ready for me, and not having to dig myself in setting the Linux etcetc is also not small ;-) , and there IS color printer, fax and scanner available in the office! (in Athens I did not manage to make single color print in year and 4 months, there was a printer but damaged and in Greece it seems impossible to get it fixed/cleaned... List of things "I did not..." from there would be quite long. E.g. in one year and 4 months there I did not manage to get health insurance card-quite incredible for an EU country, heh?- OK, I could, part of the "failure" is on me, but simply I did not want to play the stupid game so familiar to Greek bureaucrats of Turkish type: "go to the office nr. ..." and after 5 doors you come back to the first guy...without the job done! Very often you feel like they still need a Pasha to sign the Firman for everything.)

OK, but now Taiwan. Second day here and I have my health check done, sent papers for resident visa...sure, here it is also bureaucratic mess, but much more help from secretaries etc. (In Greece secretaries are there...to do nothing. Sorry to say, but it is true, compared to some other places.)

Lots of construction work here-it seems government decided finally to invest in infrastructure. For example, in front of my building they installed fence at the freeway, for the defence of noise. Something you would not expect in Taiwan, believe me.

As you may remember, Taiwanese are hard working people. Using EVERY small part of land to make some garden, even if ecologically it is...let's say "dubious", khmm.

Anyway, they started to take care also other ways about environment. Well, STARTED, I said. This does not mean they are going to demand filters for outgoing waters in all these motherboard factories! Not yet.
Btw., I found some quite reasonable laptops for a price of 500 eur or so. Not fairy-tale, saw myself yesterday in Nova shop.

Sure as you could expect, I went to EAT finally :-D. Mmmmmmmm! Funny story from Athens with Representative Office (informal Consulate) of Taiwan: I chatted with Consul during issuing visa, and I commented good Taiwan food, his eyes glaring on my descriptions of Night Markets, I think poor Consul misses some good food :-D . He was so touched that he instructed the issuing office not to charge me for the fast service (13 eur) and told me "Please, treat yourself and friends in Taiwan, when you arrive".
What I did. Thanks to Consul, let He'd have a Happy New Year - will be just this weekend, my 1st Chinese New Year :-).

Weather is magnificent, something similar to Athens, not much more humid at the moment. This is crossing when I go out towards the city or my work

and when I go through ChaoTung University path towards dormitories of TsingHua University Campus, it is GREEN

The first week here comes to an end, I am VERY happy to be here again :-).