Chinese New Year... In the USA?

My new roommate is the son of a man in the Navy and thus spent a lot of his childhood out of the USA. His family lived in China, Singapore and Hong Kong. Instead of growing up with traditional US holidays like Thanksgiving, 4th of July, etc, he grew up in a place that celebrated such holidays as Chinese New Year. He threw a dinner party to share these traditions with everyone, including me the new roommate.

I came home Thursday, February 3rd, to Matt frantically cooking since 14:30 for a party that was to start at 19:30. Since I was at the time unemployed, I offered my help. I preceded chopping vegetables and rolling out dumpling dough for the next two hours! He didn't need any recipes or measuring cups and just kept mixing ingredients while I, the sous chef, just chopped away. At the end of the two hours we had all of the prep work done, but the cooking hadn't even started. Finally, around, 20:00, everything was made and the guests had arrived. 

The menu was as follows:

27-ingredient salad (or was it 24, Matt couldn't remember)- ingredients included raw fish, grapefruit, peanuts, rice noodles, cabbage, carrots, jicama and much more 

Veggie Dumplings (that also happened to be vegan)

Pork Dumplings (no photos)

Various kinds of stir fry, veggie and non-veggie

Noodle Stir Fry 

Rice Stir Fry

Lots of oranges (you are familiar)

Some items on the menu were traditional good luck symbols, namely the oranges and the salad. The salad even had a special way of being "tossed" to bring all of the guests good luck. Everyone sticks a fork into the salad and then shouts "Lo Hi", while flinging the salad high into the air, the higher it goes the better luck you will have in the year. It was a stressful tradition for someone with cleanliness OCD like myself, but definitely a fun way to commence a dinner party. 

The night went well. Everyone had a good time dressed in red (also traditional), eating delicious, food, and drinking. The best part came the next morning when Matt had cleaned up all of the mess from the night before by the time I woke up at 8:00! Awesome roommate.  It was a great ending to a fun night. 

I never expected to have a close encounter with Chinese traditions outside of China and without any Chinese people... I am interested to see what other traditions I will learn in the next few months! I'm glad I'm able to experience new cultures while not abroad, right from the comforts of my own home.