Welcome to year 4706 of the Chinese calendar. It is the Year of the Rat, the first of twelve animal signs/constellations in the Chinese zodiac. (Click here for a story about how the twelve animals were chosen.)

Traditionally, the New Year is celebrated for 15 days - from the second new moon after the winter solstice until the next full moon, which is observed as the Lantern Festival. On New Years Day you don't wash your hair lest you wash all the luck (fa) out of your life and you don't cut anything lest you accidentally cut away relationships. It is a time to visit home from where ever you might be, to reaffirm the bonds of family, to eat lots of yummy food that all represent good things like wealth, abundance, prosperity, family, and happiness.

This year, I'm not doing anything to observe New Year Day itself except to write this post. While I am thinking of the new year and travel, let me lift up the hundreds of thousands of travelers in China who are stranded away from loved ones due to the severe weather.

But within the next fifteen days, I'll be having a New Years/house-warming party of sorts this weekend (yes, it's taken me this long to get around to a house-warming), and then I'll be traveling home to California!

First, I will visit Pasadena, where I was a graduate student, to catch up with old friends, and then attend the A/PIC conference (the Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus of DRUUMM). And then I will make my way up to visit family in San Francisco, in time to celebrate the Lantern Festival on February 21st. Sweet! I have a feeling it's going to be a good year.