Miss Chopsticks (32 page)

The Night of Sevens
,
also known as Magpie Festival
(7th day of 7th lunar month): A day which celebrates lovers, this festival marks the night when the goddess Zhi Nü was allowed to meet the mortal cowherd Niu Lang with whom she had fallen in love. On the seventh night of the seventh moon, magpies would form a bridge for the two lovers to meet. The two lovers became stars (Vega and Altair), divided by the Milky Way.

Ghost Festival
(15th day of 7th lunar month): a day when people burn paper money and making offerings to their dead ancestors so that restless spirits will not trouble the living.

Mid-Autumn Festival
,
also known as Moon Festival
(15th day of 8th lunar month): Based on the legend of Chang Er, this is a festival where families come together to eat moon cakes.

Double Ninth Festival
(9th day of 9th lunar month): A day for warding off evil, celebrated in many different ways. Traditions include climbing a mountain, drinking chrysanthemum wine and carrying sprays of dogwood.

Winter Solstice
,
also known as Mid-Winter Festival
(day of winter solstice): A day for worshipping one's ancestors.

Laba Festival
,
also known as Congee Festival
(8th day of 12th lunar month): The day Buddha attained enlightenment. People eat Laba congee which is made of mixed grains, meat and fruit.

Kitchen God Festival
(23rd day of 12th lunar month): On this day the Kitchen god returns to heaven to give a report to the Jade Emperor (in Chinese mythology the Jade Emperor is the ruler of heaven) about the family's activities over the past year. Families therefore spend the day performing acts of appeasement to the Kitchen god so that he will give the Jade Emperor a favourable report.

My heartfelt thanks to my husband Toby Eady, whose cooking skills and exquisite literary knowledge sustain me; and to my son PanPan for his independence and indomitable hard work. Without all the help these two people have given me, I could not have finished writing this book whilst juggling my frantic activity with the charity the Mothers' Bridge of Love (MBL), and my talks, interviews and lectures all over the world.

Thanks to all the volunteers and supporters of MBL: their generosity and encouragement has helped me to understand the self-respect and will to become successful and strong that lie behind the achievements of China's chopstick girls.

Thanks to Esther Tyldesley. I feel lucky and honoured to have such a translator. Like me, she is proud of Chinese women, and wishes to help others love and understand them. I would like this book to be a wedding present for her.

Thanks to my editor Rebecca Carter – whose questions have helped me understand what Westerners do and don't know about China – and to everybody at Random House who has worked on this book. It is their professional knowledge that has made my stories into the book you are reading now.

Thanks to all my friends in publishing and the media all over the world. They have helped me to express in thirty
different languages all the hopes for China I have described with my Chinese pen.

Thanks to Tantan's mother Liu Tong, MBL CEO Wendy Wu and Meiyee Lim, excellent Chinese women who have helped so many chopstick girls.

Thanks to you, the readers, for reading, and for your love and appreciation of the chopstick girls.

sharing chineses culture
helping chinese children

MBL's Heart to the World

Over fifty per cent of Chinese people live in poverty. Millions of Chinese children can only dream of a decent education. These children ask: ‘How can I ever go to school?'

In 2004, the charity ‘The Mothers' Bridge of Love' (MBL) was founded to help disadvantaged Chinese children, and to build a bridge of understanding between the West and China. The seeds of hope planted in 2004 for all those who have suffered and lost, have been watered by the charity's many volunteers in China, the UK and the twenty-seven other countries involved. They have now developed two buds:
Sharing Chinese Culture
and
Helping Chinese Children.
Our great thanks goes to all the volunteers and supporters who have allowed these two buds to reach out of the soil.

Before you close this book, and as you reflect on the story of
Miss Chopsticks
, we ask you to take a little time to find out about the activities of MBL.

If you wish to support MBL charity activities, you can send a cheque to:

MBL 9 Orme Court

London W2 4RL UK

If you would like to make a bank transfer, please send funds to:

The Mothers' Bridge of Love (MBL)
Sort Code: 400607
Account Number: 11453130
HSBC Bank Russell Square Branch
1 Woburn Place, Russell Square
London WC1H 0LQ
SWIFT Code: MIDL GB2142E

If you would like to make an online donation please visit:
http://www.justgiving.com/mbl/donate

For further information please do visit our website:
www.motherbridge.org
.

Executive Director: Wendy Wu

Founder: Xinran

MBL – The Mothers' Bridge of Love: Charity Registration

No. 1105543

 

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