**Cool Review**!! ~*Happy Lunar Year*~ **Spring Festival** Year of the Horse! Chinese New Year or better known as the Lunar New Year is a seriously big thing in China and since the Vietnamese celebrates the new year the same time as the Chinese do, Little Saigon gets really crazy this time of the year! Vietnamese people will want to start buying gifts and things to prepare for the celebration and they do this by attending the Flower Festival which goes on at the Asian Garden Mall for about 2 and half weeks before the Lunar New Year which by the way is a different day every year depending on the animal year. This year(2014) is the Horse which is part of the 12 year cycle of animals that make up the Chinese Zodiac. These interact with the five elements: wood, metal, fire, earth, and water. 2014 is the year of the«wood» horse, taking over the year of the water snake. If you know what animal sign you are, you might want to look up which element goes with your animal sign depending on which cycle you were born in because every element is different and your horoscope will different from another element like say the water horse or the metal horse. Also, make sure you’re paying attention to the«Lunar» calendar. My friend just found out he’s a rat because he’s actually born BEFORE the actual Lunar year starts. This year is January 31st. If you were born before the Lunar Year started, than you’re actually the animal from the previous year. So as the Flower Festival goes on for a couple of weeks as everyone starts buying flowers and gifts and prepare for the new years celebration, it will end to prepare for the firecracker celebration to take place on the Lunar New Year. Noise from the firecrackers supposedly drives away evil spirits. The next day will be a different event which is the«Colors of Spring Festival» where everyone is officially celebrating the new Lunar year! As Americans normally celebrate for one day, Chinese people traditionally celebrate for days and originally they did not work for many days during this celebration. This is the one time where families get together and gather from long distances to spend time together with families. So if you try to go to any businesses run by Chinese or Vietnamese during this holiday celebration, don’t be surprised that it’s closed. It happened to me yesterday. In China they celebrate for at least the first three days of the Lunar Year. So three days of festivities, spending time with family, eating good food, and gambling which by the way is supposed to bring good luck. I’m not surprised if the casinos are filled with a bunch of Asian FOBs during this time of the year. I would not even dream of going to Vegas on these three days. Good luck in traffic. Traditionally you’re supposed to clean your house and prepare for the new year and during the 3 day celebration cleaning is not done or else you’ll be «sweeping» away good luck and money out of the house. That’s a superstition among the Chinese so no cleaning for me for the next couple of days! I attended this festival yesterday and it goes on for only two days! It was packed! The condos were charging $ 5 for parking during the Flower Festival the past couple of weeks which is fine. But yesterday as they do every year, block off the streets and have a parade on the 1st Lunar day, early in the morning, the newly built condos were charging $ 10 just because of the parade! Wowsers! Well I came towards the end and missed the parade. I totally forgot there was a parade and such madness with the parking, I almost changed my mind and left and was thinking to just come back today for the Colors of Spring Festival. But I guess some people left after the parade and I found a street parking! Hooray for me! They had the same food booths from the previous festival and since Bambu was there AGAIN, hooray for me btw lol. Anyway, I came, I saw, I fed my face lol, took some photos, Unilocaled, had fun, and left. I was supposed to go to the library to study but it was so cold, I didn’t wanna walk on campus freezing my little bootie so I drove around trying to figure out what to eat, and then I drove home. So that was my cool review! Hope to see ya’ll at next year’s Lunar Year event! ~**Tet Festival info**! ****Oh actually, next weekend is the famous annual Tet Festival!!! It’s gonna be such a huge event among the Vietnamese community. You’re probably thinking why so many darn festivals lol. The Tet Festival will be the main festival of the year! Tet festival is actually a tradition of Vietnamese culture. Usually the Tet festival is held for the first 3 days of the Lunar Year, however, since they had to move it to the OC Fair grounds, bigger venue, it will be held on Feb 7, 8, and 9. And guess who will be there! Me! Duh! lol. If you have an OCTA bus pass, you get to go in for a buck! Other wise it’s $ 5. For more info go to tetfestival. org. See ya’ll there! Thank you for reading! ~**kenzie**~
