Culturally impaired

This weekend I'm throwing a little party for Chinese New Year.  I'm mostly Chinese (with some Japanese and a little Irish thrown in) but my husband is Jewish, my family lives in another state, and we live in a less-than colorful community, so I thought I'd add some cultural flavor to our lives by celebrating the year of the Pig.

I sent out an Evite last month and relaxed, envisioning the party going something like this:  serve dim sum, moon cakes, and jasmine tea, and hand out red envelopes "lei see" to the kids.  People eat, talk, laugh, a kid spills juice on the rug, someone cries, and then they go home.  A piece of cake.  But as the date approached, I realized that I had no idea what I was doing.  Decorations?  Music?  Entertainment?  No clue.  All my family ever did to celebrate Chinese New Year was go out for dim sum, or have a ten course meal at a Chinese restaurant.

My family has never been very traditional, and the cultural traditions we did follow pretty much ended when my grandmother died in 1992.  I was never taught how to cook Chinese food, mainly because my grandmother (who raised me) rarely cooked it herself, preferring instead to cook dishes from her native land, Denver, Colorado.  The only culinary reminder of being in a Chinese household was the pot of rice that appeared on the dining room table every night, regardless of what else was being served.

I also never learned how to speak Chinese, despite spending grades K-3 in a Chinese bilingual classroom.   My grandparents could speak a little - just enough to get by in Chinatown – and they only used it at home when they didn’t want me to understand what they were saying.

So yeah, I feel like a bit of a sham.  I look the part and can dress the part, but I’m not really authentic.  Thank god for the internet and a kick-ass Asian market, because I found everything I needed to know to throw a traditional Chinese New Year’s party.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!