Flo­rence Leong, of Chen’s Water­gate Restaurant

If any­one should greet you, “Gong Xi (pro­nounced Z Fatt Choy” this week, you are being wished pros­per­ity in the New Year which is the head­wa­ter of typ­i­cal Chi­nese tra­di­tions enjoyed.

Flo­rence said that another tra­di­tion is bring­ing Lion Dancers into your home which is some­thing arranged and paid for. Accord­ing to Wikipedia, the story goes that once upon a time a monk had a dream in which there were many sor­rows and evils plagu­ing the land. The monk prayed and asked the gods how he could pre­vent these evils from occurring.

The gods told him that a lion would pro­tect them and fight back the evils. The Chi­nese peo­ple had never seen a lion before, but had heard sto­ries that the lion was the king of all the other ani­mals, so the monk com­bined all the lucky or mag­i­cal ani­mals he could think of and so made a lion.

The dance is usu­ally per­formed as a cer­e­mony to scare away evil spir­its and to sum­mon luck and for­tune. The Chi­nese south­ern lion exhibits a wide vari­ety of color and has a dis­tinc­tive head with large eyes (of an eagle), a mir­ror on the fore­head (demons are sup­pos­edly scared of their own reflec­tion), and a sin­gle horn at cen­ter of the head (the horn of a uni­corn men­tioned ear­lier). Lion dance cos­tumes are con­sid­ered to be spir­i­tu­ally pro­tec­tive when used as they are tra­di­tion­ally blessed before usage. Lion Dance is per­formed accom­pa­nied by the music of beat­ing of drums, cym­bals, and gongs instru­ments syn­chro­nize to the lion dance move­ments and actions.

Flo­rence recalls the year the Dancers arrived to her home with all the noise and bang­ing of cym­bals which so fright­ened her large Dober­man that he shook the sofa pil­low until the room was filled with feath­ers. “The feath­ers fill­ing the room looked just like out of a movie,” Flo­rence added.

Feast­ing also is a huge part of the cel­e­bra­tion and is also tied to the longevity, health, and pros­per­ity. Some of the foods asso­ci­ated with the New Year** and also hap­pen to be in great abun­dance as part and par­cel of Chen’s menu. They are:

Dumplings: These sym­bol­ize wealth because they look like ancient Chi­nese money. The first bank note of China is called the Jiaozi — which is the Chi­nese name for dumplings.

Dumplings are cooked balls of dough with veg­etable or meat fill­ings inside. The dumpling can be sweet or spicy and is nor­mally served with soy sauce and vinegar.

Noo­dles: Noo­dles, by their very shape, rep­re­sent longevity, accord­ing to Chi­nese belief. Noo­dles are the most com­mon ingre­di­ent in the tra­di­tional Chi­nese reunion dinner.

Rice dumplings: The rep­re­sent the idea of “reunion” because of their round shape. Rice dumplings are another tra­di­tional dish, made from rice with a vari­ety of fill­ings. These can also be sweet or spicy.

Mandarins/Tangerine Oranges: These sym­bol­ize abun­dant hap­pi­ness and good luck because the word “tan­ger­ine”, in Chi­nese, sounds like “luck”, while there is also a belief that buy­ing these fruits (with two of their leaves intact) will make one live long. These fruits are com­monly grown in the coun­try and are another rea­son why they rep­re­sent “abundance”.

Spring Rolls: Spring rolls rep­re­sent wealth and for­tune because spring rolls resem­ble bars of gold. The spring roll is tra­di­tional Chi­nese snack made with dough and deep fried in oil. It can be made with a large vari­ety of fillings.

Fish: The Chi­nese usu­ally like to have fish cooked in a vari­ety of meth­ods — from fry­ing to steam­ing. Fish denotes abun­dance because the word fish in Chi­nese (yu) is a homo­phone for “abundance.”

Coun­ter­ing bad luck, 2012 is the Chi­nese Year of the Dragon. For cen­turies the Chi­nese have held this as the most pow­er­ful sign of their zodiac sym­bol­ized by ani­mals. The dragon brings power, luck, suc­cess and hap­pi­ness. So, in this year with a huge poten­tial for good for­tune, from Chen’s Water­gate to each of our FB/WE neigh­bors, come heart­felt wishes of “GONG XI FATT CHOY.”

* Chen’s Water­gate. Water­gate Mall.
Free Deliv­ery with $15 min­i­mum, lim­ited deliv­ery area. Mas­ter­card and Visa are accepted.
Hours Mon­day through Sat­ur­day 11 am to 9 pm. 202–965-4104.

** From “Chi­nese New Year 2012: Top Good Luck Foods to Cel­e­brate the New Year”, Inter­na­tional Busi­ness Times, Jan­u­ary 22, 2012