Saudi Arabia: Valentine’s Day
I just love this photo, from today’s Al Watan
A Saudi man shows how members of the Saudi vice squad (Religious police) crush red roses with their feet as they enforce a law banning Valentine”s Day celebrations in the conservative kingdom at a flower shop in Riyadh. The Western version of Valentine”s Day ـ lovers raining flowers, chocolates and toys, all with a red theme, on each other ـ would be a challenge in Saudi Arabia at any time of the year. Strict Islamic religious rules keep men and women separate until they are married ـ and marriages are usually arranged by their families. There is no taking a girlfriend out to a coffee shop or restaurant: the cafes and restaurants all have separate sections, one for single men and the other for women and families. (AFP)
Last updated on Sunday 15/2/2009
Valentine’s Day Word Play
Happy Valentine’s Day!
What did the caveman give his wife on Valentine’s Day?
Ughs and kisses!
What did the boy sheep say to the girl sheep on Valentine’s Day?
I Love Ewe!
What did the stamp say to the envelope on Valentine’s Day?
I’m stuck on you!
Knock knock!
Who’e there?
Frank
Frank who?
Frank you for being my friend!
Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Howard
Howard who?
Howard you like a big kiss?
What did the boy owl say to the girl owl on Valentine’s Day?
Owl be yours!
What kind of flowers do you never give on Valentine’s Day?
Cauliflowers!
What do you call a very small Valentine?
A Valentiny!
What did the boy squirrel say to the girl squirrel on Valentine’s Day?
I’m nuts about you!
What did the girl squirrel say to the boy squirrel on Valentine’s Day?
You’re nuts so bad yourself!
Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Sherwood
Sherwood who?
Sherwood like to be your valentine!
Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Pooch
Pooch who?
Pooch your arms around me, baby!
Thank you, KitKat!
Gung Hey Fat Choi in Chengdu, China
The Chinese really know how to celebrate New Years. This is footage from Chengdu, China, taken as the Year of the Ox came in at midnight. Well, from a minute before midnight to several minutes afterwards. You cannot begin to imagine 180° of fireworks continuously, minutes on end. A spectacular display.
Year of the Ox Starts 26 January!
(The US Postal Service has issued a Year of the Ox postal stamp, above)
To our great surprise, there are several very good Chinese restaurants in Kuwait – if you don’t think so, check out the number of Chinese people eating in a place, and eat what they eat. Several Chinese restaurants in Kuwait even have honest-to-God Chinese cooks!
Chinese New Year’s is a great excuse for a party, and wearing your favorite red dress. 🙂 It’s almost here – January 26th.
Chinese New Year
The Year of the Ox
by Holly Hartman
from InfoPlease website on Chinese New Year
4707 (or 2009) is the year of the ox
Chinese New Year is the longest and most important celebration in the Chinese calendar. The Chinese year 4707 begins on Jan. 26, 2009.
Chinese months are reckoned by the lunar calendar, with each month beginning on the darkest day. New Year festivities traditionally start on the first day of the month and continue until the fifteenth, when the moon is brightest. In China, people may take weeks of holiday from work to prepare for and celebrate the New Year.
An Obstinate Year
Legend has it that in ancient times, Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year. Twelve came, and Buddha named a year after each one. He announced that the people born in each animal’s year would have some of that animal’s personality. Those born in ox years tend to be painters, engineers, and architects. They are stable, fearless, obstinate, hard-working and friendly. Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Walt Disney, and Anthony Hopkins were all born in the year of the ox.
Fireworks and Family Feasts
At Chinese New Year celebrations people wear red clothes, decorate with poems on red paper, and give children “lucky money” in red envelopes. Red symbolizes fire, which according to legend can drive away bad luck. The fireworks that shower the festivities are rooted in a similar ancient custom. Long ago, people in China lit bamboo stalks, believing that the crackling flames would frighten evil spirits.
The Lantern Festival
In China, the New Year is a time of family reunion. Family members gather at each other’s homes for visits and shared meals, most significantly a feast on New Year’s Eve. In the United States, however, many early Chinese immigrants arrived without their families, and found a sense of community through neighborhood associations instead. Today, many Chinese-American neighborhood associations host banquets and other New Year events.
The lantern festival is held on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. Some of the lanterns may be works of art, painted with birds, animals, flowers, zodiac signs, and scenes from legend and history. People hang glowing lanterns in temples, and carry lanterns to an evening parade under the light of the full moon.
In many areas the highlight of the lantern festival is the dragon dance. The dragon—which might stretch a hundred feet long—is typically made of silk, paper, and bamboo. Traditionally the dragon is held aloft by young men who dance as they guide the colorful beast through the streets. In the United States, where the New Year is celebrated with a shortened schedule, the dragon dance always takes place on a weekend. In addition, many Chinese-American communities have added American parade elements such as marching bands and floats.
We heard in church a couple weeks ago that the Chinese labor force is the fastest growing segment of the expat labor force in Kuwait, did you know that? The come in, they focus, they work hard, they produce what they have promised and then – they go back to China. They bid competitively on the contracts, they speak English fairly well, and they get the job done, with none of this human rights baggage that many of the Western countries carry around. Nope. No problem, says the Chinese embassy.
Sunrise 30 December 2008
Good Morning, Kuwait!
There are tiny, fleecy clouds in the sky, nothing to speak of, no rain in sight. The scum on the horizon is diminished. It is going to be another gorgeous “winter” day in Kuwait. Light sweater weather – my favorite!
Christmas is all put away, and we are readying to welcome in the New Year. Happy New Year (already) to my friends who celebrated the Islamic New Year yesterday. May God richly bless you in the year to come.
(As I write that, I realize with a start that we don’t think the way God does. What if the economic crisis, our dwindling investments, the rising prices – what if these are all a part of God’s blessing, and we don’t see it? What if he is demonstrating that we can live more simply, more happily, with less? What if he is telling us we can be happy eating less, spending less, what if he is telling us our greatest blessings are family? good health? moderation? Hmmmmmmm. . . . . . )
Good Morning, Kuwait
Another gorgeous winter day dawning in Kuwait, with a high expected around 77°R/25°C today, while my poor family in the US is shivering with cold. I have a good friend who had three different family members stranded in three different airports, trying to get home for Christmas, and snow accumulating up to 18 inches while she prays for their safe arrivals.
Have a sweet day, Kuwait. 🙂
I will spend the day preparing for major meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Mom, I am making your Cranberry Salad. 🙂
Qatteri Cat Says “Whaaaaaat?”
Those little eyes look SO innocent, don’t they?
Don’t believe it for a moment!
Every morning, I have to gather up ornaments that have been knocked off. I have to glue them back together (I don’t hang anything very valuable on the lower branches, but it is annoying to have to glue things back all the time.)
He had his eye on one ornament and I said his name. He looked at me. His eyes said “Whaaaaaaat” you know, that three syllable what that means “why do you think I would do something like that” when you are thinking of doing something like that.
You don’t fool me one bit, Qattari Cat.
Rosette Update
I’ve been making rosettes for over 30 years now; I can’t remember a Christmas I haven’t made them. I’ve gotten pretty good, but yesterday, when I couldn’t find my traditional recipe from my Mother, and I didn’t want to take the time to boot up my laptop to retrieve it, I used one from the very traditional old Joy of Cooking and it totally threw me off.
My FryBaby doesn’t work here; I don’t have a transformer big enough and I don’t want to buy a 220 appliance I only use once a year – for rosettes – so I use a thermometer. Normally, you aim for a temperature around 370° F, but yesterday, maybe the batter was a little thinner, but the normal temperature was too high, and I found the best temperature was around 350 – 360°. All these years, and I’m still learning new tricks. 🙂
Night Flight
Arriving at the next airport, we find our flight is delayed, while a seat is found for every single passenger. As I look around, I feel dismay – this flight is like 3/4 college students. We thought with Eid having ended, the plane would be half empty – NOT so! The lounge is packed with twenty-somethings headed home to Kuwait on Christmas break from their universities in the USA.
I used to be one of those. My parents lived in Germany; my sister and I would travel home. One difference, we were flying military planes, so they would wait until a whole planeload of college students had gathered and then send us all off to Frankfurt on one plane. It was party party party, card games, laughing, talking, catching up with friends from all over Europe, some flying on to bases in north Africa and Greece . . . I don’t think we had any bases in the Middle East at that time (It was a LONG time ago!)
But payback is hell. Now I am about to board a flight full of young people like I used to be. I can kiss a good night’s sleep goodbye! Every single seat on the plane is taken, and it is a BIG plane. I prepare for the worst. I remember those days . . .
Here is what really happened: this was the nicest, most polite group of college age students I have ever met. When they gathered at the food places, they talked quietly. Most of them slept or quietly watched movies the entire flight. The flight was one of the quietest I have ever been on. The bathrooms stayed relatively clean. I was so totally impressed.
If there are Kuwaiti parents reading this blog whose college students are flying home around now, you can pat yourselves on the back. You raised young people with excellent manners. 🙂
Merchants Struggle for Survival
This is from today’s New York Times. You can read the rest of the article by clicking HERE.
By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
Published: November 27, 2008
Black Friday, long the Super Bowl of shopping, is at hand, but it may have become nearly irrelevant. Check out the deals that were already on offer earlier this week:
Diamond earrings at Macy’s were chopped to $249 from $700. A Marc Jacobs bag at Saks, originally $995, fell to $248.45. And for men, a Ted Baker suit at Lord & Taylor was selling not for the usual $895, but for $399.99.
Such crazy prices are a sign of the times, and analysts expect many more such deals during one of the toughest holiday seasons in decades.
Laden with excess inventory, hungry for sales and worried because of five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, the nation’s retailers went into a price-cutting frenzy long before the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. For weeks, they have been trying to outdo one another to capture the attention of consumers who have become numb to run-of-the-mill discounts. As the latest T. J. Maxx slogan goes: “Every day is Black Friday.”
In fact, retailers have had so many early “doorbusters” — jaw-dropping deals usually reserved for Black Friday — that “it’s almost not necessary to get up at 5 in the morning,” said Bill Dreher, a senior retailing analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities.
But the retailers are just getting warmed up.
The Toys “R” Us chain is planning the deepest discounts in its history on Friday, with 50 percent more doorbusters than last year. Other retailers are promising that their deals will be even more striking than the sales they have already unveiled — with Wal-Mart, for instance, promising large flat-panel televisions for less than $400.
Such bargains are likely to set the tone for the shopping season to come.
“There’s no reason to suspect this will end,” said Dan de Grandpre, editor in chief of Dealnews.com, which has been tracking Black Friday deals for about a decade. “This kind of heavy discounting will continue until we see some retailers start to fail, until they start to go out of business.”
Indeed, the intense competition could erode profits at many chains. Some retailing analysts even fear it could condition consumers to shop only when merchandise is deeply discounted.
Still, stores plan to pull out all the stops on Friday and through the weekend. After all, November and December sales make up 25 to 40 percent of many retailers’ annual sales, according to the National Retail Federation, an industry group. (The day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday because it was, historically, the day that many retailers moved into the black, or became profitable for the year.)
The deals were laid out in circulars tucked into newspapers on Thanksgiving Day, on retailers’ Web sites and on sites dedicated to sales and shopping strategies, like bfads.net and gottadeal.com. Many stores planned to open just after midnight Friday morning, and others — including Wal-Mart, Sears, Macy’s, Best Buy, Circuit City, Toys “R” Us and Old Navy — set their openings for 5 a.m. Target will open at 6 a.m. and BJ’s Wholesale Club at 7 a.m.
Read the entire article HERE.
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