Lunar New Year Dance

Happy Lunar New Year, Hive community!

Every year at this time, my grandma's little apartment in Chinatown, Oakland would be decorated with red silk and yellow flowers for days before the actual day of the new moon. Lacis (red envelopes with money) and Chinese snacks and candies would be hanging from the walls and scattered across the dining table. I would have so much fun making homemade pop-up cards and lanterns that glowed with glitter glue and paint, which I used to trace Chinese characters that my Mom would write out for me. Buddhist deity Quan Yin and fresh fruits laid next to my grandfather Gong Gong's ashes. We would bow 3 times to pay respect to him, who passed when I was 6.

In honor of this annual celebration, I recorded a video of myself for my Mom, where I danced to a song from the 80s that she would listen to all the time growing up. It's called 上海灘, Shanghai Beach, a song about love during war time. It's sung by Frances Yip, and was the opening music for a famous Hong Kong TV period drama called 新上海滩 (The Bund).

I thought I'd share this with the Hive community :) Enjoy!

Lyrics translation:
The rushing water rhythms
It is a river stretching for thousands of miles,
flowing continuously for eternity.
Rinse away the stories of the world
The strong currents that mix together
Is it happiness or suffering?
It's tough to tell the difference between sadness and suffering in the tides.
Success and defeat
It's difficult to see in the water

Love you or hate you
Ask you if you know
Like great blissfulness, when it flows, it will not return.
Flows through many banks of the seashore
Still cannot cease this fray
Both happiness and sorrow
Unable to distinguish between the two
Still hoping to conquer this crashing wave
My heart is ready for these ups and downs.