Happy Chinese Valentines Day! Well, tomorrow, August 16, according to the lunar calendar and Chinese tradition is Chinese Valentine’s Day.

I mentioned I have two wedding anniversaries – one for the civil ceremony and one for the reception. My memory was betraying me, as it often does. There is a third wedding anniversary for me and Mrs. Stevo: Qi Xi – Chinese Valentines Day.

We were married on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, aka 7-7, aka Chinese Valentines Day (one of three, I believe), aka The Night of Sevens. It wasn’t planned. Our marriage was supposed to take place two or three days earlier, but I went to the wrong station, missed my train, and did not end up meeting the future Mrs. Stevo at the appointed time. We met, in her province, a few days later.

On the way to the station that fateful day in 2006, Mrs. Stevo mentioned it was 7-7. My knowledge of the lunar calendar was, and still is, limited. Lunar means moon, doesn’t it?  My understanding of this time system is that it wreaks havoc with holidays: Each year they are on a different day.

“It’s Chinese Valentines Day?” I asked.

“Yes, 7-7,” replied my almost-bride.

Some romantic chord resounded deep within me . We had to be married that day, The Fates were smiling blessings upon us. It was fortuitous; it was good luck, utter serendipity. I jogged through the station, Mrs. Stevo trailing in my determined wake. In the pitfalls that followed, a late train, less-than-knowledgably taxi drivers, and the summer heat that threatened to melt an unconditioned North American, I kept my eye on that prize. To be married on 7-7…

At the registry office, we said our vows, waited for the notarized “pink” wedding books, and then set off in search of a reasonable priced hotel.

“What is 7-7?” you wonder. What is Chinese Valentines Day? I’m glad you asked. Allow me to share…

Please note: There are many variations of this tale. I have combined some elements to make it comprehensible.

Once upon a time, there was a cowherder, named Nuilang (translated: Cowherder). He was a handsome orphaned lad that worked hard as a farmer. One day he spotted seven fairy sisters skinny-dipping in a lake. On the urgings of his mischievous ox, he stole their clothes and sat back to watch the show that would inevitably follow. The sisters selected the youngest and most beautiful among them, the seventh sister, Zhinu (translated: weaver girl), to retrieve their fairy garments.

Aside: The ox was an immortal from heaven, sent to earth in the form of an ox as punishment for his misdeeds in the heavenly realm.

Zhinu retrieved the clothing for her siblings and had Nuilang agree to marry her, as he has seen her unclothed.* The couple got along well, him a dutiful husband, and she a wonderful wife. They fell very much in love and had two children.

Zhinu’s mother, the Empress of Heaven, heard her daughter, the weaver of colorful clouds, had married a mortal. She was furious, as mothers sometimes are about what they perceive to be bad marriages.

She snatched Zhinu from earth and placed her back the heavens to resume her weaving. Niulang packed the kids in wicker baskets, and using the magically hide of his now dead, and formerly god-like ox, and gave chase. The Empress, using her hairpin, tore a river across the night sky (the milky way), separating the lovers forever.

Zhinu lives on the star Vega, and Nuilang on the other side of the night sky, lives on Altair, flanked by their children on the stars β and γ Aquilae.

In time, the Empress of Heaven was touched by their great love and took pity upon the couple. Once a year, the seventh night of the seventh month, she allowed all the world’s magpies to fly into the heavens. They formed a bridge over the river and allowed the lovers to reunite.

Qi Xi is also called The Festival to Plead for Skills (qǐ qiǎo jié), The Seventh Sister’s Birthday (qī jiě dàn), and The Night of Skills (qiǎo xī).

The Night of Sevens, Chinese Valentines Day, is celebrated by:

On Qi Xi, a festoon is placed in the yard and the single or newly married women in the household make an offering to Niulang and Zhinü consisting of fruit, flowers, tea, and facial powder (makeup). After finishing the offering, half of the facial powder is thrown on the roof and the other half divided among the young women. It is believed by doing this the women are bound in beauty with Zhinü.

Another tradition is for young girls to throw a sewing needle into a bowl full of water on the night of Qi Xi, Chinese Valentines Day, as a test of embroidery skills. If the needle floats on top of the water instead of sinking, it is believed to be an indication of the girl’s being a skilled embroideress.
Source: answers.com

Today, Chinese Valentines Day is one of matchmaking by parents and at speed dating parties. Astronomically, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month the milky way appears dimmer, supporting the idea of a bridge between the two stars.

Happy Qi Xi, Mrs. Stevo, happy anniversary (again).

* Mrs. Stevo tells me in traditional China that if a boy saw a girl’s naked feet (Mrs. Stevo’s term) they had to wed. I asked if desperate girls attempted this as a way of coercing men into marriage. She would not dignify my question with an answer.

I have moved.

Not into the freshly renovated Chateau Stevo – that’s not ready yet. (I’m beginning to think it will never be ready). Our stuff is temporarily in storage – by stuff I mean Mrs. Stevo’s shoes and assorted non-essential photography equipment. I am camping on a friend’s sofa (he’s in Europe) and Mrs. Stevo, luckily, given her condition, is living with a friend who is a doctor.

This is only temporary (fingers crossed). The new flat needs to be painted and the ash floor refinished. On the plus side, the bathrooms are finished and lovely orange kitchen cupboards have been installed. I won’t speak of the dreadful tile job that was done by incompetent contractors. I should be documenting this on the DIY blog I set up, but there’s only so much blogging one man can do.

Moving is never easy. It’s not natural to pack your entire life into boxes. This was my third move in under 12 months – that’s about four moves too many. It’s easy for newbies teaching English in China to pick up stakes – the same cannot be said for veterans now working as corporate types. After five years you accumulate stuff. I tossed much of it, but there’s still boxes and boxes.

We couldn’t move the boxes ourselves – Mrs. Stevo can’t lift anything and I am vying for laziest man in Shenzhen title: Enter the movers. Mrs. Stevo said she had found some guys with a truck – they would arrive Saturday morning. Boxes packed, the first mover arrived 15 minutes late – which in China is early. He looked around, said he couldn’t contact his partner, and left. Fifteen minutes later his partner arrived, looked around, and left.

By 10 am we called someone else. They had two trucks and would come immediately.

The “trucks” it turns out, were motorized trikes (much like the one above). The new movers loaded our boxes onto two trikes with speedy gusto. The two piles I had made – boxes for storage and boxes for my temporary apartment – were efficiently mixed together into one homogeneous pile of plastic and cardboard. I should know better than to try to be organized.

Then the first mover returned and tried to take over. They had been looking for bigger trucks, he explained. His cell phone was broken. They now had a bigger vehicle, they would take over. If the current movers could load the boxes onto his trike…

Nay, I say. Thanks for coming out.

A security guard wandered over as we prepared for the monumental 150 meter trek to our stuff’s new home. I’ve said before you can’t swing a dead cat in China without hitting a security guard. They are everywhere, like Amway distributors.

We couldn’t move, we were told. We didn’t have a moving permit. A permit wasn’t needed to move in, but to move my possessions 150 meters, from one apartment to another, an officially stamped permit was required.

“This is my stuff,” I protested.

“Get a permit,” I was told.

At the same moment the incompetent tilers called. Mrs. Stevo waddled to the new flat and I jogged to the estate administration office, passport in hand. The clerk looked at my passport, couldn’t read it, and took the ID card of a friend and put his personal data on the all-important moving authorization permit. It didn’t matter that the rental contract was in my name – any Chinese name would apparently deal with the red tape.

The security guard added the official permit to his clipboard and we were allowed to depart. Fifteen minutes later it was over. The movers were given my almost broken desk and a somewhat broken sofa bed, a bonus above the $13 US they had been paid.

As dusk settled I sat in my old apartment and drank a six pack. Beer is a peaceful balm to the mental abrasions China can cause.

In three weeks I get to do it all again. Actually, the way things are going that could be 5 months. Ain’t that grand?

A Chinese mother feeds her toddler snacks.

China is all about the food. Restaurants meals, street snacks, and the things in between: Food is everywhere. Life stops at meal times. When the lunch buzzer sounds all work is dropped – it is time to eat.

The night before our wedding reception I sat in the hotel where the event was to be held, waiting for the decorator. Mrs. Stevo called him after he was 20 minutes late. “He eating dinner, he will be here soon,” she informed me. My protests and indignation fell on deaf ears: He was eating dinner, end of story. Meals in my Canadian neck of the woods came after work was done, not in the midst of it.

I have often wondered if Chinese surgeons take a break from operations if they have been scheduled during meal times. Don’t laugh – In China anything is possible.

You probably have a local restaurant or two, maybe even one serves your country’s localized equivalent of Chinese cuisine. There’s probably a convenience store for quick snacks. I said China is all about the food – that’s no understatement. Snacks abound. Convenience stores have a steam table full of hot nibbles, street vendors sell a scores of “on a stick” snacks, fruit merchants sell pineapples, sugar cane, orange, raisins and water chestnuts from the beds of large cargo tricycles.

I have learned to keep my attraction to street food in check. The treadmill penance required keep my mid-life waistline acceptably attractive is difficult – it’s easier not to indulge. Above, a mother feeds her toddler daughter fish balls from a local snack emporium – a very common sight.

The Chinese Lantern Festival will be celebrated February 28, bringing Chinese Lunar New Year to an end. The 15-day long Spring Festival will draw to a close. No more closed businesses, and most importantly, no more fireworks. I have never lived in a war zone, but the constant deafening explosions of past two weeks have given me a fair indication of what an artillery strike would sound like. I think Expatriate Games would agree….

The Lantern Festival will see the first full moon of the new year – this year being the Chinese Year of the Tiger. Modern practices see families walking outside, children holding colorful paper lanterns, appreciating the moon. Glutinous Rice Balls called yuanxiao are the traditional festival food often eaten in soup called tangyuan.

The Lantern Festival has been celebrated for thousands of years. Why lanterns? What’s the deal? If I’ve learned anything in China it is there are many different explanations for everything.

One legend says the festival was a way to worship the Chinese god of heaven, Taiyi. Beginning with the Qin Dynasty, emperors would hold elaborate celebrations to appease the god and ward off possible droughts, famine, disease, and possibly dragon attacks. The end of Spring Festival is also the birthday of the Taoist god of good fortune, Tianguan. It was believed that Tianguan liked entertainment. Since there were no strippers in the days of yor, lanterns were a way of giving the dude what he craved, and hopefully having him grant good fortune to lantern bearers.

There are other stories. Which one is true? That’s a matter of personal choice. I’m partial to the story of the Lantern Festival starting as a way of deceiving the Jade Emperor in Heaven. Some villagers inadvertently hunted and killed the Jade Emperor’s favorite bird. That’s a big no-no – don’t mess with a god’s avian friends. He was a little angry and decreed the village would be destroyed in a storm of fire.

Mr. Jade’s daughter over heard his plan and told the villagers. A village wiseman decided to hang red lanterns, start big bonfires, and toss around fireworks to make the village look like it was on fire. When the Jade Emperor’s soldiers arrived to launch their shock and awe attack they saw the village was already ablaze. They reported back to the emperor who probably said, “Good,” and went back to doing his other Jade Emperor duties.  The villagers celebrated not being burnt to a crisp with the lanterns and fireworks each year on the anniversary of their deception. In your face, Jade Emperor.

I’ll be in Hong Kong, a mecca for Indian tailors and African drug dealers,  for this year’s Lantern Festival. I’ll see what trouble I can get into and the possible photos that result.

Headed to work: A restaurant hostess in a Qipao.

You don’t see average Chinese folk in traditional dress. I guess you don’t in other countries either. Germans don’t attend business meetings in lederhosen, unless that business meeting is held by a lederhosen manufacturer.

The Qipao, the high-necked, long-slitted traditional woman’s dress of China, is possibly one of hottest most attractive garments in the world, but it’s a tad impractical.  Yes, women wear them, to parties, on dates, etc., but your don’t (unfortunately) see Chinese women lounging around the house in a qipao. There aren’t gaggles of ladies in form-fitting Mandarin gowns strolling the boulevards.

In modern China the qipao has been relegated to uniform wear. It’s worn by three types of hostesses: The ones at restaurants, KTVs, and massage parlors.  When driving down a street you can tell the sort of establishment by the dress of the hostesses standing out front. Without seeing the business’s sign you know you are before a restaurant, KTV, or massage parlor. For fans of prepared foods, karaoke, or muscle kneading, it’s a win-win.

Mrs. Stevo has a few qipaos in her wardrobe. She can’t wear them at present – the watermelon-sized Stevo-to-be residing in her belly has seen to that. There are’t maternity versions of the classic Chinese dress.

I can’t think of traditional Canadian attire, but Canada is very young country with a heritage of combined cultures. A stereotypical outfit comes to mind, but that’s not “traditional”.  What about you? What is your country’s tradition attire? Does anyone wear it?

An extravagant dinner is a big part of the recent Chinese Mid Autumn Festival celebration (a much tastier part than the moon cakes). Mrs. Stevo and I were lucky enough to dine with some friends, Kejia or Hakka people. When I heard snake was on the menu I started to highly anticipate the meal. Would it taste like chicken, as I had heard? Frog, another legendary chicken-flavored meat, does taste somewhat like chicken I had discovered.

Snake is much better than Chinese Mooncakes

Mrs. Stevo has a pathological fear of snakes. Not like, “Yikes, a snake!”  More like, a crying fit that requires a sedative. This fear isn’t limited to the live reptile: It also extends to anything that looks like (in her perception) a snake. Toy snakes, the elongated shadow of a moth, gerbils, all cause a screaming fit. Mrs. Stevo was a little hesitant to attend the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration in case live snakes were slithering around. That was not the case, the snakes were cooked.

The yellow-tinted snake wine tasted venomous. It was if the snake was biting the inside of your mouth from the great hereafter. It wasn’t without its charms but not a tipple I would partake of every day.  I did not sample the snake gallbladder wine. I will only go so far in my efforts to culturally assimilate.

An earthen pot held snake and chicken soup. The steamy, light-flavored broth did indeed taste like chicken. I didn’t get to eat the snake meat: Mrs. Stevo’s nerves started to get jittery when she realized the pot was full of snake. The fact the snake was deceased and had been cooked for several hours didn’t matter much.

The giant platter of snake meat looked a lot like fried fish fillets. The skin was a greyish black. As I pulled the meat from the bones I was a tad repulsed. You’re eating a snake, a gross slithering creature, my inner monologue droned. I pushed forward, eating the snake fillet, and then another.

Yes, snake does taste like chicken. The texture, at least of the snake I ate, was chicken-esque.

My next goal, a difficult one, is eating monkey. Yes, the look cute on TV, that’s just good PR. If you have ever dealt with a real monkey (the little bastards) you’d ask for an invite to the feast.