It’s rather fitting that my last post in this series should be about family, since I’ve leaned so heavily on my mother and mined her memories for most of the previous ones.
I’m supposed to be thinking especially about her this time of year. Not only is this the time to get together with one’s family, but it’s also particularly important to honor one’s elders and ancestors. New Year’s Eve is reserved for wei lu with the immediate family, and the following day is devoted to visiting grandparents and other relatives, neighbors, and friends to wish them happiness in the new year. (If you’re Korean, there’s a lot of bowing to the elders too, from what I understand.)
So New Year’s Day has gone and passed, I know, but I’d like to wish you and yours and all the moms out there xi nian kuai le! May your Year of the Rat be a prosperous one and filled with good fortune. And may you eat many delicious things.
There are, apparently, many different kinds of nian gao; sometimes the rice cakes are used in a savory stirfry, sometimes it might come with red bean (like the version pictured here) or sesame paste, like 
While the versions Chinese people eat for New Year tend to be 
While on my 
Mom says one of the things one must eat for Lunar New Year is tang yuan, or glutinous rice balls. There are savory versions (some pork-filled, even), but I’ve only ever had the sweet kind, which can come stuffed (with red bean or sesame paste, among other things) or unstuffed. 
The best part about this time of year, kids will tell you, is getting the hong bao, or red envelope. 
My mother mentioned mian xian, or misua in Taiwanese. These are thin wheat noodles that are often cooked in a vinegary soup (in Taiwanese cooking, anyway) with oysters, fish balls, or intestines. My mom ate these noodles for New Year’s when she was growing up. And when I was growing up, she would cook misua with the trout we caught when we went fishing (though this was never during New Year). If anyone can tell me where to get good Taiwanese misua in the five boroughs, I’d love to know. (Photo by 
What I can point you to, however, is dan dan mian, a Sichuan specialty of wheat noodles topped with a ground pork and preserved vegetable sauce with the added sensory one-two punch of chiles (searingly hot) and Sichuan peppercorns (numbing nearly to the point of coldness, if that makes sense). The best dan dan mian I ever had in New York was at J&L Mall (which was really little more than a grungy — yet gloriously authentic — food court) in Flushing, unfortunately now defunct. But fortunately Flushing has not totally forsaken quality dan dan mian; get your long-life-in-a-bowl at:
The days leading up to the New Year, Mom says, should be devoted to cleaning. To start off the year right, your house needs a total, thorough washing: windows, doors, inside, outside, everything. Chinese tradition takes this one step further. Any work that’s being done on your house, whether it’s a simple paint job or total kitchen renovation, is hastened to a finish before New Year’s Eve.
Once the house is clean, painted, and renovated, it’s time to decorate. In China (and Taiwan), you can buy poems from street vendor-calligraphers. The poems are painted on red (considered a lucky color, good for any time of year) posters that might be up to six feet long. The verse might either be a well known classic the calligrapher committed to memory long ago, most likely as a student, or an original he’s composed himself. These poems usually augur good fortune for the coming year, prosperity, success for the offspring, etc. They’re hung outside the home around doorways and on windows to welcome such prophecies into the home and make them come true.
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