Christian NBA player Jeremy Lin has become a basketball sensation since his winning streak as a New York Knick in the 2011-2012 season. Now, he celebrates the Chinese New Year with the release of his documentary "Linsanity" and preparing one of his favorite traditions in the holiday.
Born and raised in California, Lin is of Taiwanese descent and partakes in the Chinese custom that is also recognized in the Chinese calendar as the Spring Festival. As a Christian, Lin celebrates traditional holiday traditions such as Christmas and the January New Year as he wished fans throughout the holiday season blessings and greetings.
As the Chinese New Year begins the last day of the first month of the year, Lin showed "NBA Inside Stuff" how to prepare a Chinese New Year custom: dumplings. A custom tradition for the Chinese culture in this holiday, dumplings (which are also known as Jiaozi) are one of the first meals eaten and are shaped like Chinese money. According to tradition, "the dumplings are meant to bring eaters prosperity and wealth. It's tradition to eat them at midnight on New Year's eve, and hide a clean coin inside one of the dumplings."
As Lin prepared the meal for the festivities, Lin illustrated the correlation of money and his favorite Chinese dish, which he loved with green onions added on. "Right now, we are about to celebrate the Year of the Horse," explained Lin to NBA Inside Stuff. "It really signifies people being cheerful, skilfull, witty, prudent with their money."
In line with his Christian morals, Lin has been considered prudent and charitable with his money. In February 2012, Lin raised over $42,000 for Garden of Dreams Foundation by auctioning his winning Jersey against the Los Angeles Lakers. Additionally, Lin donated four tickets and a chance for a meet-and-greet to benefit the same charity.
With the Year of the Horse on the way, Lin will continue to display the traits of his corresponding year. "I was born in the Year of the Dragon and what I try to be is like a dragon," said Lin. "I try to be a leader, try to be fearless, try to be as intimidating as I can." His intimating hot streak made him a rising star and household name in the NBA, a path that many have compared to fellow outspoken Christian football player, Tim Tebow.
For the Chinese New Year, Lin has more to celebrate than just eating dumplings. His documentary, "Linsanity" has been an instant success in China, with over 4 million views in a span of two weeks. "We didn't know where we were going to wind up and now for us to be debuting the film in time for Chinese New Year in a country where hundreds of millions of basketball fans love him, it's all very exciting," said producer Brian Yang.
The film was released right in time for the Chinese New Year, a move that efficiently brought the film's success in a country where he is most admired in.
