年的故事 the story of Nian

P.1

In February when winter is leaving, it is the coming of the Chinese New Year. In Taiwan, every family is busy preparing things to celebrate.

P.2

By the end of January, grandma and mama have started shopping to buy fresh vegetables, fish and meat at the market. Also they collect joss sticks, candles and paper money from a store for the worship of the family;s ancestors.

P.3

Grandpa and papa repair the damaged places of the house. We children manage to clean the dust  from every conner of the house. Mama says that it gets rid of the old to make way for the new.

P.4

Many street stalls are selling New Year decorations of paper strips with matching couplets and pictures of the door-god and  peach blossom. When it gets closed to New Year's Day, the shops and streets are crowed with people who are buying goods.

P.5

On the day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, mama cooks the traditional meal in the kitchen, the fish dish, the whole chicken dish, the green vegetable dish, the radish soup and the New Year cake.

When mama has cooked all of the dishes, the dishes are set on the table in front of the ancestral niche. Papa arranges joss sticks and candles dedicated to the family ancestors for the family worship. then papa leads us in worship, deeply grateful to the family ancestors.

P.6

After the worship, we all sit around the table to enjoy the family reunion dinner. While we are having the delicious meal, grand pa says to us that the fish is a symbol of the surplus grain; the radish represents good fortune; the green vegetable is growth; the New Year cake is to help us do well in our lives. And grandpa tells us the story about "Nian"

P.8
Once upon a time, there was a monster, Nian, lived on a mountain. Nian was very fierce and brutal. Every New Year's Eve, Nian would go down to the village looking for food, then it destroyed fields and houses. People were very scared when Nian went to the village and harmed them.

P.9
For a long time, the village people suffered, so they wanted to prevent this destruction. On one New Year's Eve, the village people made New Year cakes and firecrackers. When the sky was dark, the village people put the cakes and firecrackers in front of their doors. Then, they waited in the their houses for Nian's coming.
As Usual, Nian Went down to the village, then it found the cakes and ate it. While Nian was eating the cakes, the people lit the firecrackers. Nian was scared by the the noise of firecrackers, and it ran away.

P.10
The next morning, the village people were happy to have survived from Nian's visit. When they met people on the street, and they said "Hsin Nian Kuai Le" to  congratulated to each other . 

P.11
After the dinner, grandpa, grandma, papa and mama give us fortune money in red paper envelops as Lunar New Year present. We don't go to bed until twelve o'clock. The sound of firecrackers comes from outside, then we congratulate grand pa, grandma, papa, and mama, said "Hsin Nian Kuai Le"



This was one project of the subject studies on my grade studies. I took up the myth about the Lunar New Year, as for my creative writing. I was not intelligent to create a new story by my own imaginations, therefore, I used my childhood experiences and my family members as the characters in to the story.
It was for the Western (English) children to understand the traditional cultures of Lunar New Year through the children book, nevertheless, it was a quite difficult assignment work. I actually, had lots of problems on using of vocabularies for this written. So grateful, got the great help from the college's best friend, Yin Pin, to completed this subject.
Moreover, the illustrations of this story book were based on my living environments as well.

就讀Bath college學士課程時, 科系自選修的assignment；兒童插畫故事，即使是一篇小故事，就算用中文寫作對我而言就相當困難的功課，何況要用外語英文創作一篇兒童故事;因此運用小時候的生活經驗跟耳聞過年的傳說故事作為架構來建構這個故事。雖然老師給我這個assignment高分，不過評語建議“不要用自己的真實生活經驗來寫故事，訓練創造能力才能持續寫出文章”。話雖如此，寫作對我來說不可能的任務！
至於故事本的插畫，也是運用記憶中生活的環境而繪出來！


丁酉年初一，“年”的故事也來應景，恭喜恭喜！