Binondo New Year

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Gong Xi Wa Chai!  That’s ‘Wishing You Prosperity’ and Xin Nien Kuai Le, Happy New Year! 

This is the 2^nd installment of the Chinese New Year special of the Office Ninja Blog.  This post chronicles the second time I visited the Binondo (Philippine’s China Town).  Far from my initial visit (see this week’s previous post), I was armed with better knowledge this time and a more concrete plan on how I will be able to eat at more places.  The place did however NOT fail in still surprising me and my ever discriminating hunger (stomach-wise and figuratively speaking).  In a good Chinese way, so-to-speak.

I decided that this post will focus only on the festivities.  I will reserve the food adventure for another post.  The reason behind is that the Chinese New Year in itself is already more than worth a solo article and I don’t want this entry to be a hodgepodge of things.  So let us revisit the streets of Binondo!

(yup 'dates, if u can still see 'em were the 1st trip I had)

6:30 am marked our departure at the same Philippine Rabbit Bus station and I was once again in China town in no time.  I was early to shun away from the traffic as the January 22 was declared as ‘Pedestrian days’ on the streets of Binondo so some roads will be inaccessible for the duration of the CNY.  Although this particular trip was done January 23 (thank God for the holiday), I had to make sure.  Nothing should spoil my quest for an authentic CNY celebration.

So here goes my take on a Photo-Blog-Article as I share with you the event in the many photos.  I am looking for Youtube videos so I can screenshot my face being featured in the news (haha, TV 5 channel star anyone?)

DRAGON & LION DANCES 

One legend goes that the beast Nian had a very big mouth that would swallow a great many people with one bite. People were very scared. One day, an old man came to their rescue, offering to subdue Nian. To Nian he said, "I hear say that you are very capable, but can you swallow the other beasts of prey on earth instead of people who are by no means of your worthy opponents?" So, swallow it did many of the beasts of prey on earth that also harassed people and their domestic animals from time to time. 

After that, the old man disappeared riding the beast Nian. He turned out to be an immortal god. Now that Nian is gone and other beasts of prey are also scared into forests, people begin to enjoy their peaceful life. Before the old man left, he had told people to put up red paper decorations on their windows and doors at each year's end to scare away Nian in case it sneaked back again, because red is the color the beast feared the most.

From then on, the tradition of observing the conquest of Nian is carried on from generation to generation. The term "Guo Nian", which may mean "Survive the Nian" becomes today "Celebrate the (New) Year" as the word "guo" in Chinese having both the meaning of "pass-over" and "observe". The custom of putting up red paper and firing fire-crackers to scare away Nian should it have a chance to run loose is still around. However, people today have long forgotten why they are doing all this, except that they feel the color and the sound add to the excitement of the celebration.