Tag Archives: Lillian Too

Celebrating the Chinese New Year

Abundance

The Chinese New Year has been flitting in and out of the edge of my culture and consciousness as kaleidoscopic images of round red lanterns, tikoy, dragon dances and loud firecrackers.

I remember tikoy (Chinese New Year’s cake made of glutinous rice) and my dad dipping it in just-beaten egg yolks and egg whites, frying it on the pan until it gets golden brown all throughout.  We would gather round the table and get it from the plate while it is still hot, our hands getting sticky and oily and sticky again, while our tongues seek and taste the gooey center where the goodness is until there is no more.

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Feng Shui and the Year of the Tiger

Influencing Your Destiny

I had my first brush with Feng Shui during my first trip to Hongkong.

We were taking the cursory city tour and the tour guide very carefully pointed out the building in the distance with a hole through it. She said that a Feng Shui expert was consulted when it was built and she said that there was a dragon that lives in the mountain behind the building.  To keep him happy, there should be a hole in the center of the building so that he can easily go in and out whenever he wanted.  It became the site of the former Repulse Bay Hotel and known as Repulse Bay’s famed “building with a hole”.

I was fascinated.  A dragon!

On her website, Lillian Too explains that the Feng Shui practice is described in colorful dragon metaphors and that that Master Yang Yun Sang’s (Founder of Feng Shui) emphasis was “…on the shape of the mountains, the direction of water courses, and above all, on locating and understanding the influence of the Dragon, Cha’s most revered celestial creature.”

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