Chinese New Year 2010
Chinese New Year begins according to the Chinese calendar which consists of both Gregorian and lunar-solar calendar systems. Because the track of the new moon changes from year to year, Chinese New Year can begin anytime between late January and mid-February. Below is a chart that shows the beginning day of Chinese New Year and the animal sign for that year.


Year Chinese New Year Begins Animal Sign
2007 February 18 Pig
2008 February 7 Rat
2009 January 26 Ox
2010 February 14 Tiger
2011 February 3 Rabbit
2012 January 23 Dragon
2013 February 10 Snake
2014 January 31 Horse
2015 February 19 Sheep
2016 February 8 Monkey
2017 January 28 Rooster
2018 February 16 Dog
2019 February 5 Pig

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“ Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”
--Mark Twain

"Rampant crime, not constitutional rights, is the cause of so much social deterioration and grief" ~~ Charleston Heston

Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is often called the Lunar New Year, especially by people in mainland China and Taiwan. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year's Eve is known as Chúxī. It literally means "Year-pass Eve".

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Lunar Calendar. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. Ancient Chinese New Year is a reflection on how the people behaved and what they believed in the most.

Celebrated in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors, as well as cultures with whom the Chinese have had extensive interaction. These include Koreans (Seollal), Tibetans and Bhutanese (Losar), Mongolians (Tsagaan Sar), Vietnamese (Tết), and formerly the Japanese before 1873 (Oshogatsu). Outside of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, Chinese New Year is also celebrated in countries with significant Han Chinese populations, such as Singapore, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. In Canada, although Chinese New Year is not an official holiday, many ethnic Chinese hold large celebrations and Canada Post issues New Year's themed stamps in domestic and international rates.

Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese new year vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of “happiness”, “wealth”, and “longevity”. On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will range from pigs, to ducks, to chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is a great way to reconcile forgetting all grudges, and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.

Although the Chinese calendar traditionally does not use continuously numbered years, outside China its years are often numbered from the reign of Huangdi. But at least three different years numbered 1 are now used by various scholars, making the year 2009 "Chinese Year" 4707, 4706, or 4646.[2]

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“ Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”
--Mark Twain

"Rampant crime, not constitutional rights, is the cause of so much social deterioration and grief" ~~ Charleston Heston

Ha ha ha. Good one Mrs. Smith. Like it matters either way for casuals during the winter. Instead of not working we will really not be working even more?

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Religion isn't the opiate of the masses......it's the placebo.-Dr. House
You couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel.

OK my day job is managing factories in China and shipping logisitics. So I have a little bit of information as to the ammount of work that will be coming (or not coming) during the CNY. CNY is on the 14th, but many people will start to take their holiday on the 6th and can extend to 21st. Typical ocean crossing times from Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, as well as other ports are about 15-19 days (depending on port of origin and type of ship). So there will be a large push to ship as much as US customers can take prior to CNY (meaning a slight increase in volume prior to CNY. So starting as early as 21st of February you can start to see a decline in shipping traffic, but the downturn could be could be delayed until the 1st of March.

At the time of the down turn, you can expect about 2-3 weeks of limited work ability. Meaning pretty much zero work for casuals during that time. Traffic should start to pick back up around the middle to late March. Maybe even into April as the factories have start up again causing even more delay.

PS: ID's will have a difficult time getting work during the CNY holiday as well.





Also, more good news. China is hosting EXPO 2010 this year. From May 1st to Oct 31st.

http://en.expo2010.cn/

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"There will always be a place for us somewhere, somehow, as long as we see to it that working people fight for everything they have, everything they hope to get, for dignity, equality, democracy, to oppose war and to bring to the world a better life."
...Harry Bridges
"I'm a working stiff. I just happened to be around at the right time, and nobody else wanted the job."
...Harry Bridges
"No man has ever been born a Negro hater, a Jew hater, or any other kind of hater. Nature refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices."
...Harry Bridges


ILWU - The Muscle that moves the country!
www.engrish.com

Factories start closing down this week for CNY. All of the factories I deal with will be closed Wednesday February 10th. Many workers have already taken this week off and 99.9% will take next week of as well. Many of the management and executives have already gone and will not return until March 1st. Most of the factories will not start back up until 22nd of February. Starting back up usually means starting from scratch, i.e. there is nothing to ship for a while. Depending on the production turn time (the amount of time it takes to manufacture a product from start to finish), and the fill demand (the amount of products needed by the customer for the late spring/early summer forecast), It will be about March 17-22 before we start to see the faucet turned back on.

Also, the bulk of the shipments ended last Saturday, February 6th. Which means the faucet will start to turn off around February 19th. There will be a few shipments released today and tomorrow, but that is it! I think that some of the ports might be working to get the last few ships on the water by Wednesday, but that is unconfirmed.

So if anyone wants to take a vacation without the fear of loosing a whole lot, then the time between Feb 19 and Mar 22 would be the time.

Good luck!

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"There will always be a place for us somewhere, somehow, as long as we see to it that working people fight for everything they have, everything they hope to get, for dignity, equality, democracy, to oppose war and to bring to the world a better life."
...Harry Bridges
"I'm a working stiff. I just happened to be around at the right time, and nobody else wanted the job."
...Harry Bridges
"No man has ever been born a Negro hater, a Jew hater, or any other kind of hater. Nature refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices."
...Harry Bridges


ILWU - The Muscle that moves the country!
www.engrish.com

This should be the weekend that we start to see the slowdown from the Chinese New Year holiday. Things should be slow for about 3 weeks or so.

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"There will always be a place for us somewhere, somehow, as long as we see to it that working people fight for everything they have, everything they hope to get, for dignity, equality, democracy, to oppose war and to bring to the world a better life."
...Harry Bridges
"I'm a working stiff. I just happened to be around at the right time, and nobody else wanted the job."
...Harry Bridges
"No man has ever been born a Negro hater, a Jew hater, or any other kind of hater. Nature refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices."
...Harry Bridges


ILWU - The Muscle that moves the country!
www.engrish.com

well, the prediction for the 19th didnt go so well. and the second prediction of the 26th failed also. tomorrow is the 2nd and there are 1100 new jobs. im sure the counts will go down soon, but im glad i didnt take that vacation you recommended. i woulda missed alot of work. hahaha.

99% of the time the predictions are wrong. every now and then somebody gets a lucky guess. you never know whats gonna happen on the waterfront. sh!t the cny has more work than we've had anytime last year.i heard some of this might be from vancouver cause of security at the olympics.

the third times a charm! hahahahahaa.

relax lung, nobodys gettin on ya about being off. this aint the religion section. hahahaha. i was more commenting on the great fact that the work didnt drop off as early as expected. however, i found out today that next tuesday thru monday, there are no ships at evergreen. the dropoff is inevitable. i was just having some fun with ya lungy.

most people here couldnt spell banter.