This year’s Chinese New Year falls on the new moon of February 7th, 2008. Ending the year of the Fire Pig and entering the year of the Earth Rat. As always the hill tribes in northern Thailand will be celebrating by wearing their finest garments with silver adornments, dancing through the night, and lots of feasting and drinking.

One special tradition related to the new year is that everyone usually gets “new” clothes during this time of year. Being that I am married into the Lisu clan, that means new dresses for ladies, and new pants for men. As we speak there is a tailor putting together two lovely new dresses for my wife, and if I’m lucky, a couple pairs of pants for myself. I want to talk about the style of the Lisu pants, they are very unique in that the crotch hangs very low, followed by an elastic waste which makes wearing them extremely comfortable and versatile. The Lisu are very particular about their color schemes. Women’s trousers are the same design as men, except they are always black in color, there is no exception. Men’s trousers are always colorful, particularly some variation of either blue or green. Although over the years we are beginning to see more variations of blues and greens hitting the fabric market.