Traditional Activities during Chinese New Year Today is the second day of the year of rooster. I want to talk about Traditional Activities during Chinese New Year. The first important day is the 8th day of the twelfth lunar month（腊八）. A special porridge made of eight kinds of cereal and beans symbolize the good harvest of the year. Where I'm from (Heilongjiang Province in China), people begin to prepare for Chinese New Year at the 23rd day of the twelfth month of the lunar year. This day we call it Xiaonian(小年). And a series of activities followed with it. 23rd, making candies. 24th, house cleaning. 25th, making tofu. 26th, shopping for meats. 27th, chicken slaughter. 28th, leaven the dough. 29th, making steamed bun. Of course, nowadays Chinese don't do exactly all things above, but tradition keeps carrying on, and the feeling when preparing for New Year makes everyone happy and satisfied. 30th, stay up late or all night on New Year's Eve（除夕）. (Some year there's no 30th, that makes the 29th the New Year's Eve). This day is very important for Chinese people, people get together and have reunion dinner. Chinese people, especially from North, make dumplings together when watching Spring Festival Gala Evening broadcasted live on （CCTV). This year our families made conch with chives dumplings and classic pork with chinese cabbage dumplings. And we eat them and wait for the counting down for the coming year. When the year of rooster arrived, we give each other new year greetings like Wishing you prosperity. Then comes the first day of New year. The breakfast is usually dumplings too. I had shrimps with chives dumplings. Some traditional activities are as followed. 1st, pay relatives and friends a New Year call. 2nd, married women return to their parents' home with husbands and children. 15th, Lantern Festival（元宵节）. People used to make beautiful lamps and put puzzles on it and now we just buy it from markets. The traditional food this day is sweet soup balls (汤圆). Another important day is the 2nd day of the second month of the lunar year, it was said it's the day the dragon rise its head. (二月二，龙抬头） People prefer a haircut on this day as a sign of good luck, just like a dragon. And eat bath chap, the head of pig. And this day is officially the end of Chinese New Year. There's an interesting saying, "Lazy wives hung themselves on this day", because the holiday is officially over and they have no excuse to keep on being lazy. I think it's a funny saying. And at last I wish you all Happy New Year!

My 2017 goal. Hello, I'm Tong from China. I want to go abroad to see different culture and people, and I understand that English in a very important tool if I'm going to do it. Year 2017 is very important to me because I will be finish my Master degree of Medicine and have to decide where to go and what to do in the next chapter. I can either go to work at a hospital but not one of the best ones because the best hospitals would like MDs and PhDs, or I pursue an MD degree in China, or an PhD over seas, like USA or Canada. SO MANY CHOICES! Anyway, English is still important if I want to continue my doctor degree. And I really look up to those Chinese who speaks English very fluently and naturally. So My goal in 2017 is practice spoken English really hard and get my Master degree successfully. Wish me luck!