Happy Lunar New Year!
May the Year of the Dragon bring you success, wisdom, strength, and courage!
By the way, that awesome picture of the apricot flowers were taken by yours truly using the Canon G12 camera =) Since the annual Flower Festival opened on Saturday, we decided to go there to take lots of pictures. I was floored by the sheer amount of flowers and creativity from this festival! I kept on taking picture after picture of flowers and half a day later, I had 284 photos in my camera! Also, it was a sunny day and my pictures required almost no editing, which is an extremely rare occasion for me.
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| A gilded dragon statue that I saw in China. By the way, it only costs you $2,653 USD just in case you want to buy it! |
My mother asked me if Westerners believe in dragons as they are mythical creatures. I told her yes, and there are several differences between the Western and Easter dragons. First of all, Western dragons have wings, look bulkier, and live in caves. They also spit fire. Eastern dragons, on the other hand, are slimmer and longer, do not have wings, and live under the sea. Also, they spit out water. It is believed that in heaven, the dragons are ordered by the Weather God to create rain.
In the East, the dragon is the symbol of the king, as the king is believed to be the son of God (and I thought Jesus Christ was God's only son!) When I went to China and visited the Forbidden Palace, the dragons were carved in places used by the king. The symbol for the queen, by the way, is the Phoenix.
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| The seal of the dragons at the outside of the Winter Palace in Beijing |
That's all for now, folks! I hope you'll have a superb Dragon year! Since it is Lunar New Year and we do have a looong holiday here, I may not post as often this week as I plan to visit my relatives. It's been a really long time since I have a Lunar New Year back home so I am going to enjoy it very much.
Take care and unleash your inner dragon!
Dao xoxo
