Happy Year of the SheepGoat!

Today officially marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year, the week-long celebration where basically all of China shuts down and the greatest human migration happens, as everyone who moved from the countryside to the cities returns home for the Spring Festival. On Monday alone, 850,000 people left Beijing. That's a lot of people.

View from our bedroom window on the eve of Lunar New Year. BOOM! 

Scott and I took the opportunity this afternoon to walk around a sunny, clear and quiet Beijing -- something that rarely happens. In addition to blue skies, there were multiple seats available on the subway. I've never seen it this empty.

Beijing subway, Line 10 -- NEVER this way. 

We ran a few errands and then stumbled upon a bar called Nashville, right here in Beijing! Of course, we stopped and had a drink. 

After strolling around the city, we returned home to find the cats slightly perturbed. The annual celebration of fireworks had started -- Chinese families light them to scare away evil spirits in the new year -- and Nia and Paku weren't too happy. I'm hoping they get used to them, as people light them every night during the festival.

I mean, what are the odds of a bar called Nashville in the 'Jing??!! 

So this year is the Year of the Sheep. Or the Year of the Goat. Or the Ram. It all depends on how you translate the character 羊, which technically can be translated as sheep or goat or ram. They're all the same in Chinese.

Professor Ho Che-wah, head of the department of Chinese literature at Chinese University in Hong Kong told the South China Morning Post, "that while sheep had a long history in Chinese society, the country's culinary past suggested the goat as the most likely animal to have been included in the zodiac. 'In ancient China, people ate six types of animals - horse, cow, goat, pig, dog and chicken. Goat is therefore included in the zodiac, too,' Ho said."

Too cute to be a ram. Or a goat. 

Since I can't make up my mind, my friend Felicia had the ingenious idea of calling it the Year of the SheepGoat, hence the blog post title. Happy Year of the 羊!