新年快樂！🎉🎉🎉 現在終於正式進入農曆的2018狗年了！在這裡先向大家拜個年，祝大家在2018新的一年裡都萬事如意、心想事成！
Happy Chinese New Year! It is now officially 2018 – year of the dog in the lunar year calendar and I would like to say my new year wishes to everyone; May all your wishes come true and all the best in the coming up new year!
就像西方的聖誕夜一樣，除夕夜對大部分的亞洲國家來說都是非常重要和盛大的。我們會和家人們團圓，然後一起吃著超級豐盛的年夜飯。不過像我們這些留學生就沒有機會回去和家人們團聚，每年的這個時候都覺得蠻可惜的😔 不過！感謝我們系上的華人同學們決定招待年夜飯給所有系上的同學們，讓他們來體驗看看年夜飯！
So just like the Christmas eve in the western culture, Chinese New Year eve is always huge among most of the Asian country. We will gather all our families around and have a huge, delicious meal together. However, for most of the international students like us, we couldn’t go back home and spend the time with our families, which is quite a shame😔 But thankfully! Me and my other coursemates from different part of the Asian country decided to held a course social night and invited everyone from our course to experience the Chinese New Year eve meal!
在準備年夜飯的過程中，我們發現就算我們的文化跟語言都很相似，還是有很多不一樣的傳統。在台灣，我們家都會吃火鍋跟炒一些台式料理當作年夜飯；我的香港同學則是準備了蘿蔔糕，港式的蘿蔔糕其實跟台灣的差不多只差在放的料不太一樣而已；中國的同學是看地區，有人吃火鍋當年夜飯也有人吃水餃。而汶萊的同學他則是準備了炒麵。
During the preparation of our Chinese New Year eve meal, we found out even though our culture and language is pretty similar, the traditional between different country is still different. In Taiwan, we always have some hot pot and traditional Taiwanese fried dishes for CNY meal; in Hong Kong, my coursemate prepared the radish rice cake which I still have them in Taiwan but just with different ingredients; in China, depends on the area they will have different traditional food such as either dumplings or hot pot to eat for their big gathering meal and in Brunei, they will have some stir fried egg noodles instead.
考慮到很多人不敢吃辣，我們分了麻辣湯跟清湯，也做了素食的水餃給吃素的同學們！準備年夜飯花了我們整整一個下午買菜跟另一個下午煮飯，要吃一頓ㄘㄟ糙的真的是有夠花時間，不過真的是值得啦！我也真的要感謝這次擔任主廚的同學，真的一手包辦了全部的料理，我真的只是在旁邊打雜跟耍廢😂 不愧是已經在中國開餐廳的手藝就是不一樣👍
Considered that most of the people cannot eat spicy food really well, we made our hot pot into two different flavour, also we made some of our dumplings for vegetarian too! It took us one afternoon to get all the ingredient and another afternoon to cook, you can tell big meal is always effort but it really worth it! Thanks to one of my coursemates, he is a fantastic cook, to be honest I am just watching him cook and help him up with cutting and cleaning😂 But him food is so good, no wonder he has already have a restaurant in China👍
我們準備的菜有燒茄子、炒秋葵、鳳梨咕咾肉、麻婆豆腐、炒麵、蘿蔔糕、水餃跟火鍋，看很多從來沒吃過的同學們嘗試這些料理真的很有趣，也覺得文化差異真的很不同。不過很感謝他們都很開心的享受我們準備的食物，不知道為什麼還蠻驕傲跟欣慰的😂 他們在問這個是什麼那個是什麼的時候也覺得很好玩，我們平常覺得很普通的食物對他們來說都像新世界，不過很多中式料理是真的很難解釋哈哈完全考驗我的表達能力😆
Look at all these food we have prepared!😋
We have prepared fried eggplant/aubergine, fried okra, pineapple sweet and sour fried pork, spicy mapo tofu, fried noodles, radish rice cake, dumplings and hot pot. See all my coursemates trying out all these different dishes is so interesting and let me realized the difference between culture once again. But I am really glad that they are all enjoying the food that we made, for no reason I do feel proud at the same time😂 Especially when they are asking what are the food, it is so funny that all these common food to us is a completely new world for them. But it is a challenge for me to describe all these Chinese dishes, I have tried my best😆
年夜飯活動很順利地結束了，我也很開心有了難忘的年夜飯！祝大家新年快樂，放假愉快～下次見囉！
The meal and event finished successfully and I had a great unforgettable Chinese New Year too! Wish everyone can enjoy their holiday, see you around!
Mandy xx
