As I’ve learned more about Chinese culture (my family is pretty non-traditional), I’ve learned about the traditions other people practice for the most important holiday in the Chinese calender.  A lot of what Chinese New Year’s is about is setting precedence for the new year.  If you start the year with money, surrounded by friends and in a clean setting, you will be lucky, happy and have prosperity throughout the next year.

If you’re interested in other cultures or just looking for a reason to party, Here are some ways to celebrate the Year of the Tiger:

Clean House: What better way to start off the new year then with a clean house? It is said to rid your house of bad luck that you accumulated in the past year, so go through that closet and those piles around your room and get rid of all that bad luck. But wait a until the weekend to do so; tradition says that if you want to keep good luck in your house for the year you must refrain from cleaning for the first few days.

Decorate. While people often paint their doorways red, the lucky color, this probably isn’t an option for most college students. Instead, I like to get paper scrolls with inspirational sayings on them.  Gung Hay Fat Choy is probably a saying you’ve heard before; it wishes for wealth and prosperity in the new year. You can pick these up at any Chinese Market, in addition to paper lanterns and other fun decorations.

New Clothes. When I learned about this tradition I was ecstatic! People often buy new outfits to start the new year off fresh. Wearing red and/or gold is also considered lucky. Avoid wearing a lot of black throughout the new year, thought, as it is a symbol of bad luck.

Party! If you have a Chinatown near you, or there is a Chinese New Year’s celebration, check it out.  It’s a cultural experience and a lot of fun.  In my hometown, they have parades, presentations, vendors and so much more to do throughout the New Year, which is 15 days long. Lion Dances are a major part of the parade and setting off firecrackers, or even using noisemakers on Chinese New Year’s Eve (Feb. 14) will scare off bad spirits.

Eat. Dumplings, fish, noodles and oranges are some of the foods traditionally eaten in the new year.  Get together with your friends and go out for food, or make your own. (Fried Rice is super easy and feeds a lot of people.) Since New Year’s Eve falls on Valentine’s Day this year, it is the perfect excuse to get your single friends together and celebrate.

Watch and Learn. The Last Train Home is a documentary by Lixin Fan about the largest internal migration, which occurs just before the Chinese New Year.  Migrant factory workers only go home for the New Year, they travel primarily by train, making it a chaotic time of year.  This documentary won Best Feature at the IDFA International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam and is definitely a must-see.

Problems with this cookie:

1. It is not a fortune cookie. It is an obvious statement cookie.
2. You can’t add “in bed” to the end of it and chuckle to yourself.
3. It is grammatically incorrect.

WTF? If they wanted to be so literal they should have gone with: “You will be hungry in 20 minutes.” At least that’s the future.

The April showers are (or should be) over, and it’s time for summer kick in. I can’t WAIT to be done with my exams (only one more… and 10 Red Bulls to go) and on the plane ride home.

The month of May is chock full of great things, and I am more than excited to get this party going. While we’re all winding down and getting ready to finish up the school year, don’t forget to enjoy all the fun things to do and celebrate this month:

1) It’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! (Yeah, I know, try saying that 10 times fast.) As an ABC (American-Born-Chinese), this celebration is near and dear to my heart. Even if you’re not Asian, you can still join us in celebrating this awesome holiday by making some scrumptious Chinese food, and I don’t mean the kind by General Tso. Laugh it up with my fellow Asian Russell Peters, probably the funniest guy alive, and watch this PSA too, brought to you by Dat Phan, another hilarious Asian comedian and stereotypical crazy cab driver.

2) At only 50 calories a cup, who doesn’t love those lovely red heart-shaped fruits we call strawberries? It’s National Strawberry Month, believe it or not (yes, even fruits get to have parties in their honor). It’s also National Salad Month! Throw a garden party and combine the two to make this Chinois Strawberry and Goat Cheese Salad, or this Arugula and Strawberry Salad. Speaking of strawberries, has anyone ever heard of strawberry meth? Sounds….tasty?

3) Can you guess what day Cinco de Mayo is on? It’s a great excuse to celebrate that Mexican heritage you’ve never had and always wanted! Or, you know, a great excuse to drink tequila and eat tortilla chips all day long. Invite your homies over for a Mexican celebration. Make a pinata and stuff it with candy, chow down on empanadas, sopapillas, and quesadillas, and cool off with a few cervezas (that’s beer in Spanish, people).

4)If you’ve ever tuned in to watch the Kentucky Derby, you know it’s a show of hats along with the show of horses. It also happens to be tomorrow. It’s too late to travel to Kentucky in time for the main event, so do it up college style. Fashion yourself a really big hat (we’re talking HUGE here, ladies), or peruse the local vintage shops for one, then invite the guys over for an afternoon of horseshoe, Mint Juleps, and the .3 seconds of excitement that is the Kentucky Derby.

5) Mother’s Day is on the 10th, so don’t forget about mom. That woman pushed you out of her birth canal, so the least you can do is send her some tulips.

6) Memorial Day, baby. OMG. Hot dogs. Corn on the cob. Ice cold beer. I’m not sure there is any better way to spend a long weekend.

Other memorable dates in May:
May 6th- International No Diet Day (Ben & Jerry’s, here I come!)
May 14th- National Dance Like A Chicken Day (And a little bit of this, and a little bit of that…)
May 31st- World No Tobacco Day (This should be every day, no?)

As an Asian, I’m unable to fully understand how many Americans can’t use chopsticks. Especially my friends. I thought I’d rubbed off on them enough to take them to a local Chinese fast-food place this past weekend. Guess not.

“How can people use two little wooden sticks to eat food?!” <Looks at the food. Looks at the chopsticks. Wipes hands then digs in. With hands.>

“Is this why Chinese people are so skinny?” <Does several frantic scooping motions with the chopsticks, ultimately picking up one grain of rice.>

“I’m too hungry for this! I give up.” <Throws one chopstick on the table and proceeds to stab the chicken and veggies with the other. Makes chicken kebab.>

(All of this while the group of Asians a table over looks at us in distaste. And silently condemns me for not teaching them the sacred Chinese tradition.)

Well, this doesn’t have to be you! After you make these awesome rubber-band chopsticks, you’ll never face disgrace at Panda Express again.

Materials

1 pair of paper-sleeved chopsticks (the kind you get at fast-food joints)
1 rubber-band (thin ones work better)

Steps

1) Remove the chopsticks from the paper sleeve and separate them into two sticks.
2) Take the paper sleeve and roll-and-fold from the bottom all the way up, until you’re left with a small rectangular shape.
3) Place the folded-up paper onto one stick about an inch from the top (the top is the thickest part) and place the other stick on top of the paper, so that the paper is sandwiched in the middle.
4) Take the rubber band and begin wrapping at the very top of the chopsticks above the paper.
5) Keep on wrapping the rubber band around the two now-intertwined chopsticks (how you wrap it isn’t really important, just make sure you keep wrapping until there’s no more slack)
6) You’re done! Since the paper creates a little leverage in the middle, you’re all ready to squeeze and eat like a real Asian.

Now that you are a chopstick pro, here are some recipes for you to test your new skills on!

Sweet and Sour Wontons

Szechuan Braised Meatballs

Shrimp Fried Rice

Chinese Chicken and Mushroom Lettuce Cups

Rice Congee

Ma Po Tofu

Green Tea Ice Cream

There are so many difficult choices in life (do we love or hate high heels??), so we thought we’d sort through ‘em right here. Every week we will discuss another issue we are torn up about. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!]

I LOVE FOOD and enjoy it as often as I can: for meals, between meals, on the couch, on the way to class, on the way to the gym… And I am an equal opportunity eater.  I love Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Korean, Brazilian, Greek, and of course, American.

There’s nothing better than walking into a restaurant or – yippee! – a bakery and taking in that hot-off-the-stove smell; the yummy aromas of fresh-baked goods fluttering into my nose and making my stomach growl with hunger. And then that moment when that delectable dish is sitting in front of me and I finally get the chance to dig in…

OMG I’m drooling.

There is one “type” of food that I’m not completely head-over-heels for, though, and that is the leftover.

Love:

That giant bowl of fettucine you had with your parents (and on their tab!) was too. freaking. good to pass up. Too bad your stomach wasn’t big enough to handle it all in one sitting. The beauty of leftovers is that you can box that bad boy up and enjoy it tomorrow between classes. Not only is it the best lunch ever, but it also saves you the time of preparing something new and the money you’d waste on a not-so-good Subway value meal.

Loathe:

Now, I’m all about recycling. Paper, plastic, and food. I love Bento boxes, and I think a great way to save the enviroment (and your wallet) is to pack up last night’s dinner into a little to-go box and heat it up the next day for a quick lunch. But I do think that certain foods should be eaten within a closed, contained space in which no one else can smell them, or be kept at home entirely. Have you ever smelled your roommate’s nauseating fish tacos wafting towards you from the public microwave? What about leftover curry dishes from last night’s Indian delivery that linger in your room for days? Gross.

And leftovers never taste as good the next day. Yes, they are probably better than anything you could whip up on the fly, but that hella good panini from last night loses its luster (and crispiness) after sitting in the mini fridge all night. And, of course, there is always that one little box of Chinese that gets shoved to the back of the fridge only to be found months later….covered in fuzz….when you go searching for that mysterious smell coming out of the kitchen.

So, tell me. What are your thoughts on The Leftover?

Happy Hanukkah, people!

In honor of the eight days of Hanukkah, we decided to do a tribute to our 8 favorite Hanukkah celebrators (also known as Jews). But then we decided that 8 just wasn’t enough; there are too many good ones! So, we upped it to eight Jews for each of the eight days.

Yes, it’s a lot of Jewish, but let’s be real – Hanukkah gets totally ignored this time of year, so we thought it would be nice to give a little shout-out to the people not dreaming of a white Christmas. You know, the ones dreaming of a little Mu Shu on Christmas eve. Click on any of our favorite Jews to see why we love em so much (and why anyone – Jew or non Jew – will love them too!).

We’ve been good this year. No, really. Stop laughing! The sporadic nights of binge drinking/copying those Stats problems/”borrowing” a few rolls of toilet paper from the university bathrooms are nothing worthy of lumps of coal, right? I mean, we went to class, we worked really hard and we got ourselves one step closer to being real adults! That must mean something.

Like, I don’t know, that our holiday wish lists might be fulfilled this year? That we won’t have to suffer through more socks from Grandma, and more educational DVDs from the aunts and uncles? That we won’t have to fight the tears as everyone else gets Mario Kart for the Wii and we are stuck with a pair of ugly light wash jeans?

We don’t want much and we laid it all out below. You know, so there are no mistakes. (Oh, and some of us are celebrating Hanukkah, which starts Sunday night, so you may want to get on the shopping ASAP. Don’t worry, though; you have 8 days to get it right.) Thanksmuchbye!

Love,

The CollegeCandy Writers

P.S. We left you some cookies and milk. Hope you like Cakesters!

Sara C – Fordham: A quality tinted moisturizer, and a nice, long vacation. I know I’ll definitely be getting the latter!

Sarah – East Carolina University: Mac OSX Leopard, so that my Macbook stops shrieking in fear of PC programs.

CJ – UConn: -To make room for gym time, or, better yet, lose 15 pounds without really trying. Oh, and world peace?

Lauren – University of Michigan: A second guitar for my Guitar Hero and Chinese Food (because that’s what Christmas always makes me crave).

S.E. – Fordham: Tickets to see Wicked. They’re expensive so I want someone else to buy them for me!

Olua: Color me idealistic, but I just want a white Christmas.

Sara Beth – University of Texas: A pair of Roo’s

Suzanne – Tulane: To pass all of my classes. Santa, can you hear me?!

Leah – Ryerson University: I’ve already gotten most of my Christmas presents (a.k.a stuff I needed for school) but the one luxury item I asked for was Marc Jacobs’ Daisy. So good!

Erica – Kent State : A KorgX50 Synthesizer. I want to make me some music!

Elizabeth – UC Berkeley: A big Northface backpack that can fit all of my books. That’s actually pretty sad once I think about it.

John – UConn: A big, green terry bathrobe. The idea is to wear as much clothing as possible while still feeling, underneath, as naked as possible.

Noa – CU Boulder: New Uggs. Lame, I know, but a girl can never have too many semi-ugly but totally heavenly boots.

Carly – Grinnell: An apron or a sewing machine (apparently I am a ’50s housewife).

Kelly – UMass: A pole to practice my new pole dancing class routines. Somehow, I don’t think my mom is too keen on having a stripper pole in our house though.

Alex – Lakehead University: Taylor Swift tickets….whatever. AND GUESS WHAT, I ALREADY GOT THEM!

What’s on your wish list this year?