Sunday Ramblings: No To White On CNY

January 31, 2022

First of all, I would like to greet everyone with advance "Kung Hei Fat Choi" or Happy Chinese New Year!! It would happen tomorrow.

Staying in a country with a Chinese employer, I have to respect their culture and traditions and adapt their style of living. Part of this is to carefully choose the type and color of clothes to wear during this special event of the year. Things that they believe bring bad luck are usually kept until the end of the CNY. And following their beliefs and practices usually runs the whole month.

Some of the beliefs I usually follow during CNY include not washing or cutting hair during the first few days as they believe that it will wash our own fortune away since the Cantonese term of hair sounds like "rich" in Chinese. And because of this, my hair should stay dry and unwashed until the 3rd day of the CNY. Gladly, it's still the winter season so we won't sweat and our heads won't smell bad. 

Another practice I should follow is omitting white color stuff during CNY as white brings bad luck to them. And upon checking my things, I realized that I only have one pair of slippers, sandals, and white shoes. You'll notice that I like wearing a pair of white shoes when going out, as most of my things were already sent to the Philippines including the shoes I usually wear during CNY.

So a week ago, I opted to order online and chose the cheap ones just for the CNY. Unfortunately, the Chinese lady said that shipping might take longer this time due to CNY preparations and celebrations. This left me no choice but to visit physical stores near the city last Sunday, 2 days before the CNY started. Sometimes, I do like buying stuff when the event is getting nearer, lol.

30th of January, Sunday, I woke up very late as I needed to sleep longer so badly. After dressing up, I traveled by bus and visited the nearest city where I could buy affordable clothes, shoes, and other stuff. Before starting my day, I filled up my empty tummy and chose to eat in a vegetarian restaurant where I and my boss ate two times this month. Since I liked their food, I chose this restaurant, unfortunately, I forgot what my boss told me that their food during Sundays is expensive and they are not serving the usual lunch set served during weekdays.

Since I was ashamed to leave the place because the staff already served an appetizer and a teapot, I opted to stay and ordered another set of food. The vegetarian rice noodles I wanted to eat weren't available, so I chose to order the congee with scallops as it was the cheapest among the congee, lol. Besides, the weather was cold so I needed to eat something hot. I then paired it with vegetable dumplings which I waited for almost half an hour for these dumplings to be served. And my congee was already quite cold when the dumplings arrived, lol.

Who would have thought that this set cost HK$96.80 or US$12.42 just because it's Sunday? Anyway, I was contented with the food so the price doesn't matter anymore. And who would have thought I could finish them all? Haha. I ate them slowly while writing an article and racing my Pega.

After eating, I went to the street market and people were swarming everywhere and the streets were fully crowded. As if there wasn't a social distancing protocol. People like visiting this street market because all stuff can be found here, from different apparel and merchandise, gadgets, homewares, home and CNY decorations, even fruits and flowers.

While roaming around, I only spotted three stores selling shoes, and most of the shoes were winter boots, thick-soled sneakers, flat and high-heeled fashioned shoes, sandals, and most were colored white. I was looking for thin-soled shoes, either black or grey but I didn't find one. And all the shoes weren't my type. 

In one of the stores, I saw flat nude shoes that I like. However, I wasn't sure if my boss would allow me to wear this color since it's like a shade of white. The black one was okay too, but after seeing pink pairs of shoes, I opted to choose one of them since shades of pink are one of the lucky colors for my boss. But honestly, after buying them, I realized that the black one is much better and can be paired with clothes of any color.

For the sake of my boss's preference, I chose the pink one even if I don't like the style. The color is fine for me but the style isn't as I like shoes with a thin sole and a slim style because it suits my slim legs more than the big and wide shoes. But no return, no exchange, so I have no choice but to keep them.

And here's the pair of shoes I chose. Is it pretty? 😅 So girly right? lol.

After buying shoes, I opted to roam around the place and another store hooked me up as it was on sale. Some clothes were sold for only HK$20 and I rummaged through the stall to find a pretty one. The pretty one became two as I saw another one. So this store stashed HK$40 cash from my wallet, lol.

The time was still young so I continued to roam around the street markets. People were shopping for CNY decorations, food displays, and flowers.

I decided to walk back home and passed by the flower market. People were flower shopping last weekend before the start of CNY. 

I always like walking around here as I could take photos of beautiful flowers. If you'll notice, most of the flowers being sold were in color red, pink, purple, yellow, and orange, as they are the lucky colors for Chinese during CNY.

There were bouquets and pots of different flowers. But what I noticed were the prices. As the CNY approaches, the prices increase as well. Even a small pot costs a few hundred already, and big pots cost a few thousand to even HK$10,000 and higher, depending on the kind and sizes.

Yet, people are still buying as flowers are part of the CNY and can not be taken out of the picture. That's how devoted the Chinese are to their traditions and beliefs.

That's all my Sunday ramblings. So this CNY, except me to wear more red, lol.

Thanks for reading.

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