Chinese New Year started on Feb 7 this year (normally celebrated for 15-days), and people from all over the world, not just Chinese, are celebrating the festival…

Villagers in Tianxin Village, Jiangxi Province, China dressed up in full gear to light the firecrackers

Annual Nagasaki Lantern Festival in Nagasaki, Japan (Image courtesy of Jon from Japundit)

Lion dance performance in front of a large crowd in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It’s the year of rat… Chinese New Year decoration in Sentosa Island, Singapore

Lion dance performance at Philippine Stock Exchange in Makati, Philippines

Chinese New Year celebration in Kolkata’s Chinatown, India

It’s always a pleasure to see non-Chinese doing lion dance (London, UK)

Chinese New Year decoration at a train station in Berlin, Germany

Chinse New Year parade in New York, USA

Hee Haa… Kungfu performance during a parade in Mexico City, Mexico

More Kungfu from Havana, Cuba

A cultural performance in Panama City, Panama

Dragon dance performance in Sao Paulo, Brazil
(All images courtesy of Xinhuanet unless stated otherwise)

A Coming-of-Age ceremony (成人式; Seijin shiki) is normally held in the morning at local city offices where politicians and academicians will give speeches reminding the new adults of their social responsibilities.

The young adults would often visit a shrine after the ceremony to make their wishes before started partying (with plenty of drinks I guess).

Ladies coming-of-age are often seen wearing furisode (a style of kimono) on the day, which makes it a special day for otaku photographers as well…

Photographers’ paradise (Image courtesy of MyMapOfJapan)

(Image courtesy of Arditpg and Papageno2236)

Peace peace… (Image courtesy of Akumach)

Young adults in Kobe (Image courtesy of Japannavigator)

Japanese Imperial Family – (sitting from left) Crown Princess Masako, Princess Aiko, Crown Prince Naruhito, Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko, Prince Akishino, Prince Hisahito, Princess Akishino;
(standing from left) Princess Kako and Princess Mako

The Japanese monarchy is the oldest continuous hereditary monarchy in the world still in existence. [More info on Wikipedia]

TSE female workers in kimono (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet)

The traditional Japanese costume didn’t bring much luck though, as the Nikkei 225 index was down 616.37 points on closing… their lowest in one and a half years.

Geisha (芸者) are traditional female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.

A screenshot of Sayuki’s website [Hat tip to 3yen and Tokyomango]

Excerpt from Sayuki’s website…

Sayuki is specialized in social anthropology, a subject which requires anthropologists to actually experience the subject they are studying by participating in the society themselves.

Sayuki has been doing anthropological fieldwork in Asakusa – one of the oldest of Tokyo’s six remaining geisha districts – for the past year, living in a geisha house (okiya), and participating in banquets as a trainee. She has been training in several arts, and will specialize in yokobue (Japanese flute).

Sayuki took an MBA at Oxford before turning to social anthropology, and specializing in Japanese culture. Sayuki has lectured at a number of universities around the world, and has published several books on Japanese culture. She is also an anthropological film director with credits on several international broadcasters.

A reader has pointed out that Sayuki is not the first white Geisha, that it should be Liza Dalby (in 1970s) instead. Thing is, Liza didn’t go through formal apprenticeship to become a Geisha, but she is generally being accepted as the first non-Japanese Geisha by the press.

Sayuki’s qualification as a Geisha is probably less questionable, but her apprenticeship is debatable as well, as she has chosen to follow the Tokyo’s ritual with training period of around six months to a year – a lot shorter than the five years a Kyoto apprentice needs to go through before she debuts as a full geisha.

The shorter apprenticeship doesn’t mean that she is not a real Geisha though, she is. I guess it would depend on how we interpret the definition of Geisha… both Liza and Sayuki could be the first white Geisha depends on how we see it. One thing that I believe though, is that both ladies must have worked hard to achieve their recognition… kudos for that.

Chinese calendar is represented with 12 zodiac animals for every 12-year cycle in specific sequence – rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Next year will be the year of rat (begins on Feb 7 on Chinese New Year to be precise).

Workers working on the drum in early December (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet)

In Chinese astrology, the 12 zodiac animals represent different character and luck for a person depending on his/her birth date and time. The months and hours of Chinese calendar are also categorized by the same group of animals in particular orders, but some formal terms would normally be used instead of the zodiac animals when referring to months or hours.

The basic of the game involved 4 players on each side, with 3 people (horse) carrying a rider on top. The teams would charge at each other, with the riders attempting to remove the hat (or headband) of the opposition rider and thus defeating the team.

Sometimes they would use 4 carriers instead of 3, especially for younger kids that probably need an extra person to carry the weight.

In the old days the winning criteria was to knock (or wrestle) the opposition rider to the ground. I am not sure when they changed the rules, but it’s obvious that the Japanese would want to avoid severe injuries from the game. Even with the current format, injuries and falls are sometimes inevitable.

Kibasen is often played in a large group of units (3 horses + 1 riders) on each side, as if on a battlefield. Below are some videos to give you better ideas…

The annual event was first held in 1960; it normally consists of a series of shows like football games and tugs of war etc. Although elephant is a national symbol of Thailand, I don’t think the festival carries much cultural value; it’s probably more for entertainment and tourism purposes.

Elephants showing off football skills (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet)

People playing CuJu in a recent cultural
exhibition in Xuzhou, China

The sport gone hiatus for a few decades during Qing Dynasty (221 BC–206 BC), and became popular during Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). The first emperor of Han was said to be a fan of CuJu, hence led to the development of the game.

The CuJu game during the Han Dynasty was similar to modern day’s football game. It was a physical (and skills) battle between 2 teams of 12 players (11 in modern days) to put the ball inside the goal post on the opponents end without using their hands.

The game took a massive change in Tang Dynasty (618–907). First, there was a huge breakthrough in the Ju (the ball)… the ball was made of animals’ bladder and was filled with air compared with stuffed-and-stitch hair and cloth in the old days.

The new ball was much lighter and bouncy, thus the rules of the game changed dramatically. Instead of having the goal post on the floor, the goal mouth was set hanging on air at the middle of the field. The players competed against each other to put the ball through the goal without the ball dropping on the floor… with no physical contact involved.

The light weight of the new ball also gave the females a chance to play the game… and a new form of CuJu sport was developed, called BaiDa (白打). There was no goal mouth in BaiDa… the aim of the game was simply to juggle the ball as long as possible, and showing different kind of skills.

BaiDa became popular among men as well during Song Dynasty (960–1279), and the old game of goal scoring became obsolete gradually.

CuJu began its downfall during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), when the game was used as a gimmick by the sex industry to attract customers; public servants had also became obsessed with the game and that partly led to the downfall of the dynasty.

After overturning the Yuan Dynasty, the first emperor of Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) banned all militants and public servants from playing the sport, fearing that their addictiveness could lead to similar destruction of Yuan Dynasty. The game was not forbidden for common citizen, but its popularity was gradually fading.

CuJu was almost completely forgotten during Qing Dynasty (1644–1911).

Today, the traditional CuJu is only played in exhibition and cultural event; its popularity is completely overtaken by modern day football.

In 2004, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of international football (soccer), claimed officially that China was the birthplace of its game.

[Reference]

Chinese ‘tea’ chess (Image courtesy of Crienglish)

Pu’er (or Pu-erh) tea has been a popular drink in China for over thousand of years. Drinking Pu’er tea is purported to aid in digestion, reduce blood cholesterol and lipid levels. It is also widely believed in Chinese cultures that tea could counteract the unpleasant effects of heavy alcohol consumption.

Williams is the champion after beating Kirilenko in the final. Besides the prize money, the champ was also presented with a Koryochungja, a vase made of Korean green porcelain.

The tennis stars in Hanbok (Image courtesy of Hansolopen)

Gigantic mooncake (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet)

Mooncake is a Chinese pastry traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (15th day of the 8th lunar month in Chinese calendar); a normal mooncake is around palm-size.

Kazakhs are celebrating a folk festival in a four-day singing and horse racing gala which opened Saturday, August 11, in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Kazakhs playing a traditional sport, which is a combination of tug-of-war, basketball (or soccer) and horce racing (Image courtesy of Crienglish)

Kazakhs (also known as Kazaks, Qazaqs) are people from Middle Asia. Most of them live in Kazakhstan and its neighbouring countries, including Uzbekistan, China and Russia.

There are around 2.2 million Kazakhs in China; not really a small population but still considered as minorities with China’s 1.2 billion people.

Kazakhs are well known for their fierce love of freedom, skillful horse riding and hunting with semi-domesticated eagles.

A group of Korean animal rights activists held a demonstration in front of a dog meat store in Seongnam (near Seoul) to protest against dog eating.

Koreans protest against dog eating (Image courtesy of Tom)

Dog meat is a common food in Korea and Koreans have been eating dog meat since thousand of years ago. One of the popular dish is Bosintang (literally ‘invigorating soup’), a traditional Korean soup that includes dog meat as its primary ingredient, and is very popular during the summer season.

It’s estimated that over a million of dogs are slaughtered every year to meet the market demand. The younger Korean generations however are beginning to ditch this traditional.