Happy Chinese New Year

I'm writing from Liverpool, the only, and incidentally, the oldest, Chinatown in Europe to be celebrating Chinese New Year today. Today is actually Chinese New Year Eve, and almost all cities have their official celebrations on the first Sunday following Chinese New Year.

I rather like Liverpool. Whereas Birmingham was simply postindustrial, Liverpool is charmingly postindustrial. Apparently the Chinese arch is the largest ceremonial arch outside of China. You get the feeling that Chinatowns are competing for the biggest, the oldest, the goldest, the most expensive. Wing Yip -- the richest Chinese person in the UK, who made his fortune in groceries -- had a pagoda built in Fujian and shipped piece by piece to Birmingham, where it was then gifted to the city, and is currently at a rotary in the city (have pictures, but not here)

Liverpool Chinese gate

This is my mom's ancestral hometown (although my mother grew up in Guangzhou), "Hai yan," 海演, in Mandarin.