This Monday is the start of Ox year in Chinese calendar (lunar calendar). There are twelve animals in Chinese zodiac cycle. Ox is the second one.
I was born and grown up in Beijing at the foot of Bell and Drum Towers. The district is considered as part of the very traditional “old” town. There were red color everywhere in the city. There are red walls of the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, and many other imperial gardens and buildings. There were many red decorations used in the daily life – red lanterns, couplets on door (门联), spring festival couplets (春联), paper cuts (剪纸) pasted on window and so on. Around the Chinese New Year time, women were on their new dresses, which were red. At the shops and the markets, everything was wrapped with red paper or in red package. People gave and received red envelops. The tiny red pieces from fireworks were everywhere on the ground.
Chinese New Year is also called Spring Festival. When magnolia blooms, spring is coming. Let this magnolia arrangement join your Spring Festival celebrations, wish everyone a very Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Monday!
The picture of this week’s flower arrangement is the New Year arrangement with traditional materials - pine, bamboo, plum and orchid. I set it up in the dancing studio where I take class. People loved it. 
We walked in the campus to the parking lot. It was a lovely warm winter night. It was foggy and sprinkled a little bit. The lights were blurry and soft. Winnie and I talked about the performance. I realized that the singing by the chorus did not sound like male voices (yang) or female voices (ying), Winnie agreed. When listening to the singing, the only feeling was harmony. Twelve male voices in the range from countertenor to bass were seamlessly blended. It was a charming performance and I was so glad that I went.
At this Saturday’s ikebana class, I had two kiwi branches, one banana leaf, and three anthuriums. After arranged kiwi branches and the three anthuriums, I decided to tear off the banana leaf and cut it to smaller pieces to use in the arrangement. That brought the needed green color and softness feeling into the arrangement and also made connection between the kiwi branches and the anthuriums. 
It is not easy to always come out something new, Chanticleer did great job. I wish I could do that too. I wish that I could bring my readers excitement every Monday, and make them wonder what I would bring in the next week. It’s long way to reach that goal, I will try my best. Lately, the economy has been the topic everywhere. There is a fear that we are in the dark winter and don't know how long the winter would last. It reminds me "Spring In Winter", the store I wrote and the arrangement I made two years ago.
Here is the original Spring In Winter:
The Saturday two weeks ago (11-18-2006), I had coffee with my dear friend Mike. We haven’t seen each other for long time, we updated each other. We talked about Happy Monday and Mike asked if I would do anything special to celebrate the upcoming one year anniversary. I was not sure. I had no plan and no time to plan one.
The following Monday, I received an email from a reader, she wrote: “I very much admire your passion and devotion to what I view as a hobby; it must mean so much to you.” I replied to her: “There was no specific reason when I wrote the very first one. I was just so moved by how much impact flowers could do to a person, I was in the mood and had to write. The responses for my writing from readers were great, so I kept writing. I was late twice, readers emailed me to ask where is the Happy Monday. I could not stop since there are readers ‘biting their nails, and waiting (one reader told me that)'. I just keep up.”
Now when I look back myself, I realized that I have been benefited from the writing and learned a lot along the way. The most important lesson I learned is the life attitude, to be open minded and be gratitude, I learned and I was touched by life every day. I share what I learned and what moved me, then I learned more and I was touched more from your feedbacks. I truly appreciate that you gave me the needed push to keep me record and share my life journey with you. Without readers, there will be no Happy Monday.
This Friday night, I learned that my friend Eve passed her thesis defense of her master degree. She had been working on her degree for about three years. It was not easy. She works full time and takes care of her elder parents at the same time. She had lots of support from her friends and coworkers. Friday morning, her coworkers hosted a rehearsal for her, that was when the whole group faced re-org, her coworkers were not sure about their own future. After the rehearsal, everyone in the team wished her good luck and sent her on her way. They had waited in the office until she passed and called with the good news.
I was deeply touched by the story and am happy for Eve, I went to farmer’s market Sunday noon and found irises to make her celebration arrangement. Iris is a typical Spring flower, spring signals new life and new beginning, Spring is the hope. There is no better suitable flower than spring flower for the celebration. I arranged flowers backward in basic style to prepare myself for the future teaching. When I finished, I turned it 180 degrees to have the if face me. I critiqued and corrected, then pulled all stems out, tried second time. When I finished second time of practice and looked at the arrangement, I realized that this process mirrors the life process. We gave our best to accomplish something, when we look back, we review if there is any way to improve, when we have new opportunity, we restart the process again. There was no better way to celebrate Happy Monday's anniversary than this – back to the basic and start over again.
I gave the arrangement to Eve Sunday night. She will take the arrangement to the office to share with her coworkers on Monday. No matter what the outcome is to her group, I wish “spring in winter (I titled the arrangement)” will bring Eve and everyone in the group a new beginning and best future.
