Happy New Year

Yesterday was Chinese new (lunar) year 2013, which is the year of the snake. It was welcomed by millions of people in the far East, where this is one of the biggest and most colourful celebrations of the year. Every lunar year corresponds to an animal and the system rotates every twelve years. So there will not be another snake year till 2025. The animals of the the cycle are said to pass traits of their character to people born in their year. I am always fascinated  by these anthropomorphic views of animals and when I was first told about the Chinese lunar year and the animal cycle I was really intrigued .

I grew up in a suburb of Athens which had a village feel to it, as it was situated on one of the mountains surrounding Athens and was "above" and off the main motorway. So quite cut out from even the extended central area of Athens. There wasn't, and still isn't today, a bank or a post office or a school. The nearest school was below the motorway and we had to take an underpass to get there. It was an area famous for its clean air and the fresh meat tavernas, which were packed in the weekend evenings. Also famous for some of the first blocks of flats built  in Athens put up by the United Nations to accommodate a large refugee population in the sixties. Everyone knew everyone there and everything there was to know had gone around twice. One year towards the end of primary school we got a new student who was the most exciting thing that happened to me in my whole schooling days. The new girl was from Korea and did not speak a word of Greek or English or any other European language. I think she was pretty petrified to begin with and also seemed to me a bit angry. I was totally fascinated by her; she had the longest, shiniest black hair I had ever seen, she was tall and very beautiful. I took it upon myself to become her guide, protector and, I was hoping, her friend. We walked home together and communicated in the beginning with signs and funny noises. I walked her back outside her house after school and we met to go to school together. She picked up the language within three months, but I remember she used to get very frustrated when she did not know the words to say exactly what she wanted. She in fact did not need a protector as she was very strong and very tall and could keep her own very well. My mother had met her parents when they went to her shop and they were the first people to open a Korean food shop and restaurant in Athens. Asian food and restaurants were not known at all at that time and even today they are not a common sight.

Anyway, after a few months of meeting her she invited me to her house for lunch one Saturday. This first visit is still imprinted in my head. They had rented an apartment in one of the old refugee blocks of flats and were I think on the fourth floor. The living room was dark, with cushions on the floor instead of a sofa and a very low table. They had a CD player (I had never seen one before and did not see one for years afterwards) and a sound surrounding system that made the music sound as if it was coming out of the walls. They had the biggest selection of music I have ever seen. Her bedroom was very simple, immaculately arranged and had a very particular smell to it, as she did, something between fragrant steamed rice and old fashioned soap. I never saw her parents' bedroom. The kitchen was small and very clean and her mother was there preparing the lunch. She was a beautiful woman and had a very proud, straight back and appeared young. We sat on the floor around the low table and I used chop sticks for the first time. I remember the clean taste of their rice, I had never tasted rice like that before. I can't remember what else was served, but I remember the pickled cabbage, kimchi, that she asked me to try. It was such an alien taste, I did not know what to make of it, but I liked its strong smell, so I ate it.

After that we visited each others houses a lot. I remember both of us vigorously washing our precious navy blue All Star summer canvas shoes in her sink using brushes and soap and then drying them in the sun to get them to look  a bit faded. I remember her father bringing me back from Seoul a very unusual cuddly toy shaped as a tortoise with pink and veramen hexagons on its shell. And I remember her telling me about the twelve animals of the Chinese wheel (she called it Korean wheel) and that we were both born in the year of the horse. We run and galloped and skipped from leg to leg on the way to school pretending to be horses. She was a black shiny horse and I was a white one with brown patches.

She grew up much faster than me in many ways and a couple of years later she started to become a bit distant and distracted when we were together. But she wouldn't say what was wrong. We spent less time together by then. One day she called my house and asked me to please tell her mum that she was with me for that day if she happened to call, but she did not tell me why. I completely forgot to tell my granny that and when her mother called I did not make it to the phone in time and my granny said  that no, she hadn't seen her for weeks. Very soon after that she was sent back to Korea to a boarding school while her parents stayed behind. They had caught her with a boy in the forest of our mountain. I never saw her before she left, but her mother gave my mother a photo of her in her new school; she had cut her hair very very short and looked very sad. I don't know what I did with that photo. I have tried to trace her down since, but her parents left Greece and I have not been successful through social media. I hope enough animal lunar years have passed and that she may not be too angry with my failing to cover for her. And I hope she remembers me.

Below are the twelve animals of the Chinese wheel. The ones on black paper come from a book of collaged animals I made for Aretousa when I was expecting her.

Snake 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989,  2001, 2013

Horse 1930,  1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014

Sheep 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015

Monkey 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992,  2004, 2016

Rooster 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017

Dog 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018

Pig  1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019

Mouse 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020

Ox/Cow 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021

Tiger 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022

Rabbit 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023

Dragon 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024