Michael Turton sums up beautifully the one aspect of the impending Chinese New Year holiday that I forgot to mention and won’t miss, the end-of-the-year banquet, called a wei ya.
The basic idea is similar to the office Christmas party familiar to every American, with the importance difference that the wei ya is not fun. I have successfully evaded the wei ya every year so far, but this year the Chair, who is a friend, asked me to go, and I couldn’t say no. So on warm monday night in January I found myself far from wife and children, and having a cross-cultural experience, which is a polite way of saying bored to death and eating bad food.