2013 Year of the Snake

[GeneChing]

新年快樂

We've posted Kung Fu Horoscopes for 2013 Year of the Snake.

Chinese New Year is observed this Sunday, FEB 10, although I'll be celebrating it more formally the following weekend at the Extraordinary Martial Artists of the World Lunar New Year Gala in Vancouver. From all of us here at KungFuMagazine.com, we wish you health, wealth and happiness, and may your kung fu be full of qi!

See our Year of the Snake T-shirts, Hoodies, Henleys and Long-sleeve Ts.

[GeneChing]

This story is interesting just to know that there is a Temple of White Snakes in Taiwan. That sounds like an awesome Kung Fu villain lair.

Chinese world worries that Year of Snake may bite
By ANNIE HUANG, Associated Press
Updated 2:45 am, Friday, February 8, 2013


In this photo taken on Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013, Director of the Temple of White Snakes Lo Chin-shih holds a genetically modified, auspicious, white snake as he talks about its significance in the upcoming Chinese lunar new year of the snake according to the lunar zodiac calendar in Taoyuan county, in north western Taiwan. Lo said the new year of the snake would be a time of steady progress, in contrast to the more turbulent nature of the outgoing year of the dragon. The Chinese new year fall on Feb. 10. Photo: Wally Santana

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — As Indiana Jones might say: Why did it have to be the Year of the Snake?

When the Chinese-speaking world ushers in its new year on Sunday, its 12-year zodiac will turn from the dragon to one of the world's most despised animals. As undeserved as the snake's reputation might be, its last two years did not go so well: 2001 was the year of the Sept. 11 attacks and 1989 was when Chinese forces crushed pro-democracy protests around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Some wonder if this one also could hold bad tidings. "In Chinese mythology, snakes were often associated with monsters, or with incarnations of monsters, so some political turbulence can be expected," said Taiwanese astrologer Tsai Shang-chi.

Chinese New Year remains the most important festival in the region, a weeklong round of family reunions, temple visits and gastronomic excess. It is Mardi Gras, Christmas and the Fourth of July rolled into one, marked by the clacking of mahjong tiles and explosions of firecrackers. With businesses and markets hermetically closed, it brings a rare calm to the otherwise frenetic pace of what is arguably the world's most dynamic economic region.

In China, some couples have apparently been trying to schedule their pregnancies to avoid having children born during the snake year, in contrast to the coveted Year of the Dragon.

In Beijing, a manager with the government office that arranges appointments with obstetricians said there was a noticeable drop in appointment requests compared to those received as the Year of the Dragon approached, though she offered no firm statistics. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the press.

For souvenir makers, snakes have been a tough sell.

"Last year, our business was a lot better, because everybody loves the dragon, whatever his or her animal sign," said Lin Peixiang, who owns the Beixiang Souvenir Factory in the city of Wenzhou. "This year, business is a lot worse, because only those born in the year of the snake love the animal. The snake sign is a symbol of fear. People get scared when they see or hear the snake."

But if many fear the snake, some astrologers and masters of feng shui, the Chinese art of arranging objects and choosing dates to improve luck, also see good signs for 2013.

Hong Kong feng shui master Raymond Lo is trying to put a positive spin on the year. He points out that according to astrological tables, this year's variety is the relatively mild "morning dew" type of common water snake, less venomous than recent predecessors.

"It's more moderate, humble and patient," Lo said of the 2013 snake. He added that he is bullish on the year's prospects for the world as a whole, and sees good opportunities for economic growth.

Still, Lo said, people should probably take precautions against the snake's traditionally destructive power, perhaps by wearing monkey pendants around their necks. That goes double for anyone born in a year of the snake, he said, like incoming Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Xi's 1953 birth coincided with the final convulsions of the Korean War.

"The monkey is the only animal that really knows how to handle the snake," Lo said.

Tsai is also largely upbeat on the new Chinese year. He believes much-needed liquidity will be injected into struggling world economies, and that babies born over the next 12 months will be both self-motivated and agile.

On the down side, he warned, there could also be massive flooding and tsunamis.

The New Year's season is implacably festive, and people have been out in force in cities across the region in recent days, stocking up on provisions and traditional new year symbols.

In Taipei, revelers were particularly enamored of snake-shaped paper lanterns supplied by the municipal government, as well as coins imprinted with snake logos and snake-like toys thought to bring good luck.

At the Temple of White Snakes in suburban Taoyuan county, director Lo Chin-shih presided over a glass-encased display of dozens of slithering snakes, replete with flashing pink tongues and slowly molting skin, a symbol of change, renewal and hope for a better future.

Lo said this snake year will be a time of steady progress, in contrast to the more turbulent nature of the outgoing dragon year.

"Unlike dragons that make abrupt, attention-getting moves, snakes take slow and steady steps," he said, making it clear he considers the hiss of the Year of the Snake worse than its bite.

___

Annie Ho and K.M. Chan in Hong Kong and researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.

[pazman]

This story is interesting just to know that there is a Temple of White Snakes in Taiwan. That sounds like an awesome Kung Fu villain lair.

These guys appreciate your interest.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Gotta love the snake

[David Jamieson]

Ride the Snake

[SPJ]

Have something sticky or nian.

Have a fish or yu.

Have bountiful.

Nian Nian You Yu.

On new year's eve dinner table, every food item carries some meaning for good fortune.

You eat/have some sticky rice or sticky cake.

You eat/have a fish.

You eat/have nian nian and yu.

You have bountiful

http://vine.co/v/bvetIlwU76U

http://vine.co/v/bve9Iw09YOd

[Kellen Bassette]

No-one wants to tame snakes anymore.

http://http://www.reuters.com/articl...9160P220130207

[PM]

[EarthDragon]

Happy new year to all my chinese family and friends

[GeneChing]

I must say that I am enjoying all of the snake stories. Anyone else here ever have a snake banquet? It's sort of like a Peking Duck banquet but with multiple courses of snake dishes.

China's 'Snake Village' seeks New Year riches

AFP
February 10, 2013 2:39PM

FOR Zisiqiao in eastern China, the arrival of the Year of the Snake carries a special meaning, as the scaly reptile has given the tiny village its main industry and prosperity.

In the 1980s, villagers began raising snakes for food and traditional Chinese medicine, transforming the village in Zhejiang province near Shanghai.

Scores of households now raise serpents, earning the settlement of more than 800 people the nickname "Snake Village" in Chinese media.

They include Gao Shuihua, 50, who began breeding snakes three decades ago instead of the traditional farming and raising fish.

"We were poor before. We didn't have anything else to do so we started raising snakes," he said.

The snake is not considered to be among the most adorable of Chinese zodiac animals - which are based on the lunar year and not the calendar month - but Gao said they provide food and medicine as well as his livelihood.

"Some people don't like to eat snake because they think it's weird. But every kind of snake has its own method of preparation," he said, adding he preferred his in soup, which makes the meat more tender.

"Business ought to be better this year because of the Year of the Snake," he added, as he pulled out glasses for visitors to sample his homemade snake ***** wine - the males have two such appendages - made from the venomous Chinese krait.


Snake farmer Yang Xiubang checks the opened snakes which are dried in air in Zisiqiao village in Zhejiang Province which is known as China's first snake village. Local raise more than 3 million snakes a year which are used for traditional medicinal products and food. Picture: AP /Eugene Hoshiko

His nephew praised the drink's benefits. "This is a tonic for building up health. It's especially good for men."

But Gao warned: "If this snake bites you, you will be dead in four hours."

Upstairs in one of the bedrooms, the family keeps nine buckets of sharp-nosed vipers preserved in alcohol awaiting sale to traditional medicine factories, which pay 3 yuan (45 cents) apiece.

Snakes were worshipped by the earliest Chinese as a totem, with millennia-old stone carvings depicting Fuxi and Nuwa, the mythological ancestors of all Chinese, as half-human, half-snake.

And some historians also believe the dragon, regarded as China's national symbol and typically depicted with a long serpentine body, was based on images of snakes.

Huang Guangyu, 25, believes that medicines made from the creatures are highly effective.

He suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, or arthritis of the spine, and came to Zisiqiao from his home in the southern province of Guangxi after reading about the curative properties of snake.

Huang takes a daily ****tail made from several species. "It's not cheap," he said, but added: "I couldn't even walk last year."

He is a client of the Deqing Snake Culture Museum, opened by Zisiqiao's most successful businessman Yang Hongchang, which combines a treatment centre, tourist attraction and retailer.

Inside a specially heated room, hundreds of snakes dulled by winter hibernation rest in wooden boxes including the notorious "Five-Step Snake", so venomous that its victims are said to die within five paces of being bitten.

But such dangers are far from Yang's mind. "We wish for business success and happiness in the Year of the Snake," he said.

[David Jamieson]

I've eaten snake. It's good and yes, it tastes a little like chicken with the texture of pork.

[SPJ]

Watching tai chi 1 and 2 over the stormy weekend.

No snow but rains in So Cal.

Laugh so hard watching the movie.

guai ka.

strange foot

3 flowers consolidated on the head.

--

[GeneChing]

Win TAI CHI ZERO: begins at 12:00 a.m. PST on 02/08/2013 online entries must be received by 6:00 p.m. PST on 02/21/2013.

[MasterKiller]

[MasterKiller]