For Annabel: A Year in Taiwan #2

Dear Annabel,
The Chinese New Year is probably the most important festival of the whole year for either Chinese or Taiwanese people, and it means way lot more than 1/1 for us.
Traditionally, it'f the time for family to gather together. We'd eat together, and we'd visited our neighbors and friends, wishing them a very prosperous, lucky and nice year.
The peony is the king of flowers in Chinese tradition. It's a common symbol of the Chinese New Year, which means riches and honors; the bottom left are a kind of ancient Chinese money. Fish in Chinese is pronounced as "Yu," which sounds the same as "extra" in Chinese. The fish basically means that we wish people could have a good year and always have something extra, something left, not lacking things. We do firecrackers to scare away the monster Nien (a monster in Chinese mythology), and we do the lion and dragon dance (mostly in temples) to pray for better luck and get rid of bad things.

Hope someday you could experience it yourself. :)