MOF Chinese New Year Banquet

The Rusty Dragons will once again have a table of 10 at the annual Ministry of Finance Chinese New Year Banquet & Valentine's Dance. The event includes a 12-course Chinese banquet dinner, lion dance, on stage entertainment with singers and dancers, guest speakers, and many lucky draws for prizes. There will also be a Gangnam style dance competition for fun. 

The year of the Dragon is coming to a close, and soon it will be the Year of the Snake (lunar new year's day is actually Friday Feb.10). We will be handing out laisee (red lucky packets) for those born in the year of the snake.  Although Chinese New Year's day follows the lunar calendar and does not fall on January 1st, you must consult lunar calendars to see what your Chinese horoscope sign is (12-year cycle).  Generally, snakes were born years 2001, 1989, 1977, 1965, 1953, 1941, 1929, 1917, 1905,...

We have been coming to this banquet for several years at the invitation of event organizer Thomas Chong. Thomas is a big supporter of dragon boat racing, and we had met when I paddled occasionally with the Toronto Area Dragons whose coach at the time was Steve Kwok.  Steve was also my first coach on the OPS team he formed when I started racing in 2003.

I will be given the opportunity to provide a dragon boat update to the 500 in attendance on the Rusty Dragons, the PDBC Masters, and a special presentation to the OPS Diversity EANG Dragons. The EANG team will have a large presence at the event with 3 tables.  I will also be bringing my KayakPro dragon boat erg for a paddle demonstration and a VIP volunteer paddle and photo op! There will also be a dragon boat article and pictures in the event colour brochure.

GUNG HEI FAT CHOI!!