I have a big plum tree in the backyard.
Right now it has started to blossom and in June there will be hundreds of big and sweet plums. This happens at the same time every year and we usually have a big barbeque party with friends and neighbors to enjoy food and the plums.
We take real good care of the tree. It brings happiness and good memories to all of us and I hope this will continue for many years to come.
Hello! I will write about my weekend.
Last Saturday morning, I went to school to study English, but I left school at 10:30, because I had an interview about a job. I went to the CCHC church to study English in the afternoon. Before I went to church, I saw a lion dance in
On Sunday, my daddy and I went to
That was my weekend. How about your weekend, classmates?
The
There are 4 people in my family, my husband, my daughter, and my son.
Before, I worked in a supermarket for 10 years. Now, I have stopped working. I go to
I love my new country.
February 18th was Chinese New Year. I felt very happy. Many of my classmates planed how to celebrate this special day.
Finally, we chose to BBQ at
When we got there, we smelled the fresh air and felt very relaxed. Each classmate chose a job and after a few minutes we had some food ready to eat. We made jokes and we increased our friendship.
When we were ready to leave the beach, we had a little trouble. One of our classmates said, "Oh, my goodness! My car can't move because I forgot to turn off the car's lights. What should I do?”
He asked another classmate, "Do you have jumper cables?" But nobody had them.
He chose to stay with his car alone. The other classmates finally came back with the cables. Unfortunately, the
He is a very funny guy. He always has a joke for us, but he had a little trouble joking that day. After we left the car in the parking lot, we went to sing in
I will miss them and remember that special day because that's my first New Year's Day in the
Good Bye!
Tam and Hung were my best friends when I was a child. We grew up together, and, for years, we played together.
After we graduated from elementary school, Hung went to
About two years later, Hung came back and informed us that he was going to get married. We were very happy and wished him happiness. On Hung’s wedding day Tam and I participated in his wedding party. At first, we were very happy but when the bride and groom came in I saw that Tam was very sad and angry. I asked him, "Why do you feel sad?"
He said, "Do you know the bride?"
I said "I don't know her."
He said, "The bride was my old girlfriend! Now I know why she left
Later Hung didn't see Tam and asked me "Where is our friend, Tam?"
I said, "He left but I don't know why. If you want to know why, ask him tomorrow." and I left, too.
The next day, Hung invited Tam and I to meet him at a coffee shop. When I came to coffee shop I didn't see Tam and asked Hung, "Where is Tam?"
He said, "I didn't know. I thought maybe you would know?"
I thought and said, "Do you want to know everything?" and then I told him what I knew.
The next day Hung asked me to invite Tam to a different coffee shop. He wanted to talk with Tam.
When he saw Tam, Hung said, "I'm sorry about your girlfriend, but now she is my wife. But I didn't know any thing about your relationship with her. Her mother, my mother-in-law, is my mom’s friend. When I first saw my future wife, I thought that she was a cute girl and that should I marry her."
Tam said, "Don't worry about me, I felt bad at first because she was my old girlfriend. Now I am trying to get used to it, but I’m OK".
We all shook hands and said together "We will be good friends forever!"
Last week, my wife asked me to take my daughter to get a hair cut before Chinese New Year. I started to think about how I used to celebrate New Year in
When I was a child, I always got so excited that I started counting down the days a month before New Year’s Eve. Just like how some American kids count down for Christmas.
On Chinese New Year's Eve, my mom always gave my siblings and me new clothes to welcome the New Year. My family would have dinner together with lots of good food.
On New Year's morning, I would say lots of blessing quotes to my parents so they would give me red envelopes (lucky money). Then we would have a vegetarian breakfast. After breakfast, my parents would tell us to leave the house to go play.
I would go play fire crackers with my friends and I would light up a fire cracker to throw it at people I did not like. That was my favorite game.
I also went to different houses to wish them a happy New Year so I could collect more lucky money from people who were married. Elderly people used to refer to Chinese New Year as little hurricane because they had to give lucky money. I didn't understand what they meant when I was a kid. Now I do and passing out lucky money can be costly. I will end my story by saying, "Gong Hay Fat Choy!" (Wishing you prosperity!)
Valentine's Day is coming soon. It is an important day for every couple or lover who has fallen in love.
THE FIRST FORTUITOUS CHANCE
A girl named Gi Gi lived in a small apartment alone after she graduated from
college.
Every Sunday, she would go to the laundry to wash her clothes. One Sunday, she went to the laundry to wash her clothes.
Later, after she had returned home, she was arranging her clothes when she found a man’s sock. So Gi Gi returned to the laundry. When she arrived there, a young guy was standing in front of the dryer, and he said, “I washed my clothes just now, but I lost one sock!”
At this moment, he saw Gi Gi and she looked at him. They each held a scok in their right hand. They smiled at each other. This sweet love story began with a pair of socks.
Ten months later, before leaving to study abroad in
During that time, he contacted her by phone and e-mail every day. Of course, usually there were a lot of honeyed words emerging from the computer. These moments were sweet and happy. But for the pair of separated lovers, life was hard and difficult!
One day, the girl received this message. The boy wrote “The E-mail fee is very expensive, so I have decided come back!” That was exciting news. The girl waited for one day and then another day to pass. But after ten days, the girl received another message. This time, the boy wrote, “I don't want to come back, because she had a baby and I must marry her. I want to make my life with them!”
Gi Gi didn't believe that this was the truth. She sent e-mail to him unceasingly, but he didn’t respond.
When I learned about this story, I asked Gi Gi, “Maybe your lover married, but you are not the bride, so that is why you are witherd and sad until now?”
She shook her head and continued.
THE SECOND FORTUITOUS CHANCE
Every year, on her mother's birthday, Gi Gi would buy some flowers in memory of her mother because her mother had died 5 years ago. On that day, Gi Gi usually went to the graveyard. This year, she was surprised when she saw an old acquaintance in the graveyard. Gi Gi could hardly believe that her old boyfriend’s mother was in this place.
Gi Gi said, “Hi, aunt" to the old woman and asked, “How is your son and his child?”
The old woman looked puzzled. “Chirld? What did you say?" asked the woman.
Gi Gi said, “Nan, your son, told me that he had to marry a girl in
The old women shed tears and then told GiGi that
“Didn't you know, he said he would come back very soon, but two weeks before he left America, my son received learned that he had cancer of the blood and soon after, he passed away,” said the old woman.
Gi Gi couldn't stop the tears and asked herself many times, “Why? Why?”
She followed the old women, and came to
Before that she had had a lot of questions to ask him, but now, she just kept quiet and wordless for a long time.
Every one loves someone. On this special day, I hope that everyone will cheirsh what you already have.
Finally, blessing to everyone. Have a good future with your best love.
First, we need to get new clothing; prepare lucky envelopes filled with money, plan the New Year's Eve Family Dinner, buy fire crackers to welcome the wealth god. There is a parade and street festival and, mainly, feasting.
There are many things we need to do before welcoming the New Year. First, cleaning the house two days before New Year is a way of saying that you sweep all unlucky or bad things out from your house. You should also clean all the bed sheets. We need to welcome the New Year with everything in the house clean and new because on New Year's Day, the Wealth God will come and visit every family hoping that he can leave some luck and wealth behind. Anyway, people say that there is a Wealth God (Choy Sun Yah), and well, it has been passed on for many generations and Chinese believe there is a Wealth God and he is watching.
Secondly, on New Year's Eve, all family members are expected to show up for dinner because it is a tradition. On that day, our parents will hand out red envelops to all the children. My mother will cook a big dinner with lots of food and especially chicken and fish because they represent that all children are well fed.
My mother will give me new clothes to wear and I will take a long bath. We need to take a long bath because we need to clean all of our unlucky things that have happened in the past yearand welcome the New Year with good fortune. On New Year's Day, we are not allowed to take a bath or wash our hair because we might wash away our luck and fortune.
There are many activities on New Year's Eve. There are dragon dances with music, street festivals with many different kinds of flowers and many different kinds of Chinese food. People dress in red clothes and basically everything is in red. Red, in Chinese, means lucky.
Dragon Dances and Fire Works are to welcome the New Year and Wealth God. The most exciting activity is gambling. People will gather around and play Mahjong, play cards or other games. People will gamble and stay up the whole night.
On New Year's Day, in some parts of
In my family, we fast on New Year's Day until dinner. We eat lettuce, rice, peanuts and, most important, the vegetable call "Fat Choy." Fat Choy is something black and looks like hair but the meaning to this vegetable is "Rich". There is a saying that, the more you eat Fat Choy, the richer you will get. Anyhow, I don't believe it but it is a saying and has been passed on for many generations.
We are not allowed to sweep the floor or break anything because it is bad luck. There is also another saying that if you sweep the floor on New Year's Day, you might sweep away your fortune and luck.
Anyhow, on New Year's Day. our relatives will come to our house with presents and red envelops to hand out to children. And in return, we have to do the same. We will give them back some presents and red envelopes. It is a tradition that married people, parents, and elderly give out red envelopes to children and unmarried people. Before receiving the red envelope, you have to say nice things to them; such as “Kung Hay, Fat Choy”, wish them wealth and health throughout the year, or wish them a safe and happy New Year and anything that you can come up with that is good.
In conclusion, children can not wait for New Year to come because they are expecting to receive a lot of red envelopes. Chinese New Year is a big thing in
What do I like to do in my spare time and what is my hobby?
I love to go fishing in my spare time and it is my one of favorite hobbies. I like to go fishing because it is quiet and so peaceful. In the past, I went fishing almost every weekend.
I go fishing with my friends and brothers in the river in
I don't have to hear something like "Dad, can you do this for me?” or “Dad, I need to play horse back riding and so on." You know how it is with children.
Four years ago, I had a friend from
It was striped bass season and we were trolling for striped bass and suddenly, something heavy hooked on my fishing pole. It was very hard and heavy and I was unable to move it. I tried to reel it in but it was moving very fast and strong. It took me fifteen to twenty minutes to bring the fish up to the boat. Surprisingly, it was a sturgeon.
My friend and I took the sturgeon to a local restaurant for dinner. My friend from
Uncle likes fishing a lot and he said he never met anyone who had caught a sturgeon before. He then asked if I could take him fishing sometime and I said it is always good to have more fishing buddies. After that day, we went fishing a lot and caught many fish on our fishing trips in the Delta near
As salmon season approached, uncle and I had a conversation about going fishing on the party boats. The following weekend, we both invited our friends to go Salmon fishing. We all met at my house that morning and I remembered having a very funny conversation with Uncle. I asked everyone to take a seasick pill to avoid sea sickness. Uncle loudly said, "Young man! When I was younger I used to live on a naval ship." He also said, "No need to worry for me, just worry for you." I got on the party boat at the Berkeley pier and when the boat passed under the Golden Gate bridge area I saw Uncle's face turning pale and I said, " Uncle, are you okay?" \
He said, "I think I got up a little too early and I should go sit inside the boat to take a rest."
We all wanted to laugh but we didn't want to embarrass him.
I still remember that moment when the boat got to Half Moon Bay. The party host called my name very loud and said, "Hey, Dave, your friend needs help." I turned toward him and I saw Uncle throwing up everywhere. From then on, we always laugh about that time and he tells all his friends that I always took care and helped him. He also tells his friends that I am a real friend and a person who uses his heart to help out others when in need.
We get along so well that even his family treats me like part of their family. I will always remember what Uncle told me, “a true friend is hard to find and when you do, do not take him for granted. You should cherish the friendship that you have bonded."
Until this day, I miss this friend a lot and in my heart there's always a space for him. I remember this friend and don't know when our family and his can have dinner again.
