Well, it is that time again to celebrate Chinese New Year 4707 on February 14, the year of the Tiger. I had planned to take Hua back to China for this New Year but because we are going to China in April for conferences, I decided that next year may be better.

So this year, we are celebrating year 4707 in Las Vegas. This year works out well since the 14^th is also Valentine's Day (Qing Ren Jia) and the 12^th is her second birthday. Chinese celebrate two birthdays, one to our calendar and one for theirs.

Did you know that the word "casino" is a Chinese word? I did not know either but this week; my teacher Wang Mei told me the story. Apparently, many years ago in New York, many of the Chinese immigrants were from Fujian province. After working all day, they would get together to play games and wager a dollar or two and at the start of each game they would say in Mandarin "cai shi le" or in English "let's start" however, when said in the Fujian dialect it was "cai si no" and I guess the name stuck. I guess Professor Wang should know.

Please keep watching the CCBC website as we are planning many events around SME's during the first half of the year.

China is moving along and with relations back to normal; we need to keep capitalizing on our opportunities.

So on behalf of the Canada China Business Council and our families, we wish you all a Happy Year of the Tiger or Hu Nian Kuai Le