Red Strings and Dragons
May the Dragon rain down all the good gossip!
Dear Squawkers,
For many people, the big event on the calendar this weekend is the Super Bowl. For many more people, like over a billion, literally, the bigger event on the calendar this weekend is Lunar New Year. Saturday 10 February marks the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, and for the last few weeks, my ma has been on my ass how this Year of the Dragon won’t have a “li chun” or “lichun”, which means first day of spring. It’s to do with calendar math, kinda like leap years in the Gregorian calendar. The Chinese calendar which follows the moon, has leap months. Please don’t make me explain this any further, calendar math has always confused me.
The point is we’re not getting “li chun” this year, and a year without a “li chun”, in Chinese folklore, is also called a Widow Year. It is considered bad luck, for those who believe, to get married during a Widow Year. Because of the low marriage rate in China, people are asking the government to issue a public notice to discourage citizens from making decisions based on superstitions. But, you know, old bitches from my ma’s generation are always going to believe what they believe.
Widow Year, by the way, only applies to romance and marriage, it does not apply to having children. Everyone wants to have a Dragon child because it’s considered lucky to have a baby in any Year of the Dragon, whether there’s a spring or not.
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