In Chinese class this week, our teacher told us how to say all sorts of Valentine's Day vocabulary in Chinese. In addition to "Valentine's Day" itself (literally translated as "Lover's Festival"--and, she warned us, "lover" is not a good thing), we learned how to say "roses", "chocolate", "cards" and "candelit dinner".
Most of the class seemed none too pleased to spend so much time talking about Valentine's Day. When our teacher asked one student what he was going to do, he didn't bother trying to translate (though he could have) that he was going to drink heavily. There was one student, though, who frantically scribbled everything down so that he could later try to say them to his wife.
Someone asked whether Valentine's Day is really celebrated much in China, as it surely must be an imported Western holiday. Our teacher explained that it's very popular among young students, particularly in the universities. But, for old married couples (she gave us the equivalent phrase in Chinese) like her and her husband... pfphh! She told us about a saying in Chinese: if she were to ask her husband what presents he was going to buy her for Valentine's Day, he would use this phrase which means "the bait is gone", i.e., the fish is already on the hook.
Last night, my Chinese teacher invited us to her house for 饺子 (dumplings) to celebrate the Chinese New Year. She made 素饺子 (meatless dumplings) for us vegetarians (I wasn't the only one). A few of the dumplings had a date secreted inside them--if you got one with a date, it was considered good luck. Since the other vegetarian had left by that point, I didn't have much competition, but I only got one of the four, since the others hadn't been cooked. My teacher got three of the five that were in the meat dumplings, so she has a great year ahead of her. (This is my teacher, Tian Laoshi, on the right). 
While there, we got to meet a couple of our teacher's other students (from the class after ours). This is Lee and his girlfriend Liane (who is the reason he is learning Chinese). We also got to meet our teacher's daughter, who is quite an exuberant teenager. She doesn't like 饺子 though, so we didn't see her for a while. When she finally came down, she was scavenging for food. Even though she was really hungry, she couldn't make herself eat the dumplings. We all thought they were delicious (很好吃) and I ate way too many.
