Privileged to have been included in such a soiree, knowing that the event has been closed in the past to non-members, I savored the Group Song of Happy New Year (in Chinese) and the "Tai Chi Fan" with the students of Stella Huang, Peter Tu and Daniel S. P. Yang. Prof. Yang, who has staged many theatrical productions, both Western and traditional Chinese, delighted us with a 400 year-old serenade to a novice nun, a piece representative of a period classified as the "Mother of Beijing Chinese Opera."

Anthem is America and the dance floor quickly filled when Latin rythmns beckoned for line dance. The evening’s program was a enchanting mixture of West meets East; DJ Wong spinning disco and other beats, an elegant and graceful cha-cha"Tai Chi Sword."

"Shay shay" to Organizer Marianne Blaha and the members of the Chinese Special Group of Sun City Anthem for allowing us to share in their celebration. I understand more and more Chinese are making this area their home. Welcome! Your contribution to the community of Las Vegas is much appreciated. Happy Year of the Red Fire Pig!

Related: Bellagio, Chinese New Year & The Golden Pig, Very Decent Dim Sum, Gung Hay Fat Choy, Aloha! Chinese New Year on the 9th Island

For those of you less versed in Asian time cycles, the Chinese New Year is based on a lunar calendar and arrives this year on February 18. I won’t go into the complexities here, but it always falls around the same time of year. It is similar to Easter, except it doesn’t have to fall on any specific day of the week. You probably already know that the Chinese calendar has 12 animal signs and that the years are associated with one of those signs. It is calculcated by various cycles intercepting each other and best left to esoterics to pursue the hows and whys. Suffice it to say that the coming year (loosely 2007) is the Year of the Pig. But better than that, it is the year of the RED Fire Pig which comes only every 60 years.

This is a most auspicious pig year and considered a year for booming businesses and families. I like the sound of the business part. But now we come to the really interesting part. The buzz in all the Asian newspapers, especially in Korea, is that this is a GOLDEN Pig Year, which only occurs every 600 years! It gets better and better. As Pigs are symbols of Wealth and Good Luck, this should be a banner year by any standards. So if you see banks, restaurants, and other businesses handing out golden piggy banks, you’ll know why. Now sceptics say there is no foundation for a Year of the Golden Pig, that it is an invention of the Korean government to encourage more births as the country has a declining birthrate. If you believe in this stuff, then you believe that your Red Pig child will be twice as lucky. Imagine a Golden Pig child! I personally like the idea of this being one of the luckiest years out of the last 600; works for me.

By the way, dreams about pigs are supposedly signs of coming wealth. If you dream about a pig tonight, then tomorrow might be a good day to invest some money or hit the slot machines. Pig People (those born in 1923, ‘35, ‘47, ‘59, ‘71, ‘83, ‘95 and 2007) are intelligent, maybe too honest, loyal, sincere, have much courage and make good friends and neighbors. They hunger after knowledge and should stick to literary and artistic pursuits. They are not supposed to be good at business, which is odd because of the Wealth attached to them. Oh well, who says it has to make sense?

Here’s to THE YEAR OF THE (maybe) GOLDEN (for sure) RED PIG. May it bring us all great prosperity and luck!