The sun rises, the day is nice and bright

Zhao Chen wakes up to see the light

Noises play out of his door, chopping and clinging

A alarm goes off as he quickly slaps it to stop that annoying ringing

His ears tingle as the soft noises of sizzling and chopping can be heard

As he walks out, gets ready for the day

Something is heard as the smoke alarm goes off

Zhao Chen’s head aches like a COO-COO BIRD!

It aches so bad that he has to cover his ears

He doesn’t want to hear

The coo-coo bird flies until it stops

As he uncovers, he hears the word

“熱熱熱!”

HOT HOT HOT!

Mama was cooking something again…

But what for?

Zhao Chen walked over as he saw that the magic that began

It was 春节/春節!

Lunar New Years! The Spring Festival!

Zhao Chen joined with his mama, helping her with the bao

Kneading the white dough until it was thick and pliable

Rolling the stretchy white ball into a sheet

Cutting it into round moons

But when his mama said that he had to do the meat

His dread came in

Staring at the mass of flesh, he felt like it wasn’t that fresh

Zhao looked at it for a million years

Until he scooped it up

The goop that was reddish pink with bits of veggies

It felt all too squishy

The discomfort soared through

Will this Lunar New Year be this hard too?

Later on in the weekend

It was a very wonderful end

Going to a party where all could gather

A house filled with loud banter

Zhao Chen looked around

People talked and gossiped

All crowded around tables with yummy food

The smell was heavenly as savory, sweet, and all went all over

But it was loud...

Overwhelming...

And cramped…

The aunties and uncles surrounded him, offering their hongbao

Little red envelopes scattered as everything was too much for poor Zhao

He tried to play it off

But when he was out of it

It was flight or fight

Running off to the small room

Sitting down as he tried to recover from that doom

But in the corner of his eye

Another boy was there

He didn’t yell, he didn’t get close

He looked