Twelve days to go until Chinese New Year, when it will be out with the goat and in with the monkey.

New Year comes along on 8 February this year and, as always, I’m looking forward to the massive celebrations in London, which are said to be the  biggest outside of Asia.  The partying normally starts the day before the New Year and continues until the Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the New Year.

A colourful note: chestnut is a reddish shade of brown named after the nut of the chestnut tree.  It is one of the current colours of Crayola crayons, introduced in 1958, but under a different name.  Originally called Indian Red, there was some offended and incorrect belief that it referred to the skin color of Native Americans.  As a result, Crayola changed the name to chestnut in 1999. Indian red is actually an iron oxide pigment which is popular in India.

Copyright Debbie Smyth, 26 January 2016