First off, China's New Year is based on the lunar calendar, rather than the Western solar calendar. So the date of the new year changes annually. This year, it fell on January 22/23. We were invited to the home of Chen, one of the other owners of Cup O' Joe to celebrate with her family. Chinese New Year is not much different from Christmas in the ways that we all celebrate by visiting family, eating a lot of food and just hanging out, watching TV, playing games and enjoying time off from work. So we were honored to be invited into her home on the most important night of the holiday.
We arrived at her apartment with Chinese sweets and jars of nuts in hand as gifts (you should see the mounds of nuts/seeds for sale at the stores here this time of year...cashews, pistachios, almonds, watermelon seeds, sunflower seeds...they are a very popular and traditional gift to give and food to offer at your home for Spring Festival). Chen was quick to apologize for the temperature of her house (about the same as outside, only no wind chill :)) and insisted we put on slippers and perhaps keep our coats on. Smells of homecooked Chinese cuisine wafted in from the kitchen and we went in to check it out and offer to help with no avail. There was some arguing over who would sit where and after persisting that Chen and her husband should take the seats of honor at the head of the table, finally we all sat down. Chen does not eat red meat and knew I was vegetarian (or as she puts it..."You...no animal"), so there were plenty of veggie options...tofu, mushrooms with greens, noodles and cabbage, da tou cai (literally "big head vegetable"), green beans, glutinous rice balls, cherries and kumquats...and then there was the meat, oh the meat...fish and egg, chinese chicken soup, dried shrimps, and more.We sat and ate for a bit before Chen was back in the kitchen, cooking up more dishes and bringing out plate after heaping plate. They came out in courses and just when we thought we could eat no more, an empty dish would be replaced with a new hot treat to try. In the midst of all of the initial eating and cooking, Erich and I noticed Chen's husband and son anxiously looking at their watches and then the TV in the other room. We had heard that at 8pm on New Year's Eve in China, there was a nationwide broadcast that everyone watched. It seemed that our late dinner was about to coincide with the kickoff of the show and they didn't want to offend their guests. So Erich and I asked if it would be okay to move the table into the living room so that we could watch the program. They smiled wide at the suggestion and had the whole feast moved in front of the TV within seconds :) So there we sat for the next 4 hours, watching Chinese entertainment at its best...acrobats, musicals, opera, comedy skits, singers, dance numbers. Most of which was easy enough to understand and enjoy with our low level of Mandarin skills, but Chen's family was happy to translate the especially funny or poignant parts. As the program played, we ate more, drank some homemade family alcohol that was 3 years in the making, laughed, shared stories and cultural curiosities, and shot fireworks out of the window as the rest of the neighborhood was doing.
As the countdown began, we all went to the window and watched as thousands of fireworks were set off around our town. (The same types of fireworks that we set off in the states, only there are no permits or special licenses needed here. They are sold on the streets to children/adults, set off as you walk down the sidewalk and pretty much a part of daily life in China...the multitude of them at this moment was just amazing.) This video is the view from our apartment building at midnight. This fireworks show went on as far as the eye could see...it seemed that every family had purchased 1,000 fireworks and all set them off within a 30 minute time frame. I especially like Line's footage of the morning after...such a peaceful contrast to the night before...haha. Thanks to our friend Line for lending me the link since I only took photos that weren't so great of all the fireworks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE7qRFuqAZg&feature=autoshare
We stuck around for a bit after midnight, toasting to the hosts and to a prosperous New Year and getting invited to celebrations for Chun Jie next year with their family again, before bundling up, shooting off one more set of fireworks, and walking home. It may have been the bitter cold that evening, but our faces were frozen in large smiles as we left to go home...a memorable first Chinese New Year with our growing family here. Xie Xie Chen and Family.
Today, wehad friends from the local community center come by to wish us "Xin Nin Kuai Le" (Happy New Year) and gave us the traditional "fu" posters and red lanterns to hang on our front door. "Fu", pronounced "foo" (not the disrespectful American "F. U."), means good luck/good fortune. The Chinese hang the fu characters on their door this time of year to bring in good fortune to their household for the New Year. Just in time too...we had taken down our Christmas tree and decorations the week before :)
During our favorite part of the trip we also seemed to travel back in time to days when life was more simple, technology was limited and self-sustainability is key. Upon arriving in the Longji Rice Terraces, we were dropped by the bus at a gate surrounded by 70-something year old ladies in traditional dress, offering to porter your bags through the hillside on their backs. We threw our packs on, politely declined the offer, and viewed another Chinese couple pay one of the ayis ("aunti") to carry their luggage and 3 year old daughter in her bamboo basket. We were told there was no road, only a footpath to get further into the villages among the rice terraces. So we hiked in, up green-ish stones, around enormous rice terraces, through the mist of the winter fog. And 45 minutes later, we reached our village and a place to stay...a wooden guesthouse, kind of built like a reverse rice terrace...smaller on bottom and each floor above getting gradually wider. It was built in a traditional method, using only wooden pegs to join the lumber, no nails or screws in the foundational structure of the building.
Needless to say, after some hikes in the now winter-like weather (we had snow flurries and ice one day), it didn't take us long to find the "xiao kou" or small fire/grill in the family's kitchen. So we would sit around the open fire in the corner of their kitchen with the Chinese family that lived there...adding wood, peeling garlic, practicing our Mandarin, and eating...as we dethawed from a hike or passed the evening hours when it was dark and you couldn't go anywhere. This, I think, was my favorite part of the trip. We really felt like a part of their family in that kitchen and they welcomed us as such. We had a taste of real life in the countryside as we shared time with them...and during this time of year, it was lived around the fire...source of heat and food. 
We saw and appreciated the time and effort of preparing a meal in a place where a 45 minute uphill hike on foot was necessary to get anything from outside of the small village. They picked their dinner from the garden in their backyard and slaughtered the chicken walking around the front door. During the days, clothes were mended and new designs sewn on them...at night, meals cooked and stories told...all around the fire. Erich and I would hike around the countryside all day until our toes or fingers were numb, then knock on a wooden door and ask to come in to a random stranger's home to sit around the fire and warm up...and they were all so happy to share the warmth they could provide along with tea or snacks and broken conversation. The simplicity of it all was alluring to us. Part of me thinks that had we gone here first rather than last on our trip, we might've stayed the whole time there. 