birdietam

Year of the Dragon

Added 2024-02-12 07:53:46 +0000 UTC

Happy year of the Dragon friends! This is one of my favorite and most cherished holidays - it brings me back to the roots of my Chinese heritage and makes me excited about the coming year.

As a second generation Chinese daughter, I sometimes feel a little distant to my own culture. When my parents moved to the US, they tried their best to integrate into society which meant doing a lot of American traditions to fit in and leaving behind some of their usual traditions.

So when Chinese New Year rolls around, I try my best to do some of the traditions I know and love. Chinese people are very auspicious, so they'll do a lot of things to bring in good luck and fortune. These are things like:

1. Cleaning BEFORE the New Year (And apparently you're not supposed to clean for 5 days after cause it's bad luck, but I don't do this lol)

2. Wearing red for good luck

3. Eating nian gao which is a sweet treat and sounds similar to going higher (leading to more fortune)

And SOO many more.

When I was in Asia, I felt so happy to see decorations everywhere and am grateful that I got to spend time with my family too. I already knew that I wanted to do more dragon themed things this year, so I took photos of Dragons everywhere I could!

And I'm so happy I did so because for some reason, it's very difficult to find traditional artworks of Eastern dragons.

I am preparing to go back to the studio this week and get started on the new dragon pieces and have sketched out some new designs. I'm so excited to try new techniques and see how these turn out.

Happy new year!