In With the Horse.

Well, Chinese New Year has come and gone without any dragons and firecrackers, plates of egg noodles, or kids at the door saying ‘penny for the guy, mister,’ ‘trick or treat,’ ‘ying tong yiddle I po,’ or whatever it is they say at Chinese New Year. Maybe they just say ‘Happy New Year’ in Chinese.

We didn’t have a China Town where I came from. It wasn’t big enough. I remember there was a Chinese family who ran a laundry, and I remember my mother telling me a horrific tale of another Chinese family who were trapped in a house fire when she was a girl. I never got over that one. Real horror always got to me at every age; I suppose it’s why I’m generally unmoved by horror films.

So now it’s the Year of the Horse. I was thinking back to previous Years of the Horse and remembered that 2002 was a bad one, 1990 was a good one. I’m hoping there’s a pendulum effect in place. So…

Xin Nian Kuai Le to all Chinese people, or at least the nice ones.

Or, Gong Hei Fard Choy, if you happen to be my old friend Chan San-Mei.