Chinese New Year Seize its Secrets
The 1/1 day of Chinese New Year is most celebrated
Lunar New Year
Festivals based on the solar calendar include Christmas and New Year, while those based on the lunar calendar include winter solstice, Hanukkah and Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year.
Those living in Hong Kong are blessed to enjoy both solar (Gregorian) and lunar calendar celebrations.
Lunar New Year is also called the Spring Festival since it occurs after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the solar calendar.
First day of the first month
The first day of the first month of the lunar calendar is tremendously significant. This date is traditionally referenced as “1/1” and is the most celebrated of all the Chinese festivals.
This year we welcome the new lunar year on 29 January and the start of the Year of the Snake.
The snake is the 6th symbol that identify the year and the protective guardian of the 12 zodiac animals based on the Chinese calendar.
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Foremost on the minds of Chinese zodiac devotees and those happy to follow tradition is preparing for the festivities and an auspicious start to a new year. 1/1 brings new beginnings and tradition provides a list of ways to prepare for this new start.
First 3 days of New Year for rest
The 12th lunar month, just prior to 1/1, is the time for cleaning and decorating your home, shopping for festive foods and cooking preserved dishes, as no one is supposed to labour or cook for the first three days after the Lunar New Year.
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Fill your home with flowers and blooms in the days preceding 1/1. A trip to the flower market in Mong Kok will give you ample opportunity to buy traditional Narcissus. These are typically purchased as budding bulbs and placed in a water-filled porcelain bowl.
Blossoms attract fortune and prosperity
In a few days, they blossom with beautiful white flowers. Delicate and fragrant, these are said to attract good fortune and prosperity. It is one of the most auspicious flowers for the Chinese New Year.
This is a time to paste fortuitous phrases in the centre of one’s door and good luck verses on either side of the entrance.
Good luck verses for Chinese New Year
It is common to use homophones (words that sound like other words); for example, the character fu for blessing is pasted upside down since the words dao, it’s arrived, rhymes with upside down, meaning blessings have arrived.
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Round sweet oranges, tangerines, and pomelo, symbols of heaven’s full blessing, are traditional decorations. Those, with green leaves attached to signify spring, are even better.
One option is to buy a small kumquat tree to place in the entrance and the main family room.
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Hard, but frequently inedible, good fortune biscuits are purchased and used for decoration. In Hong Kong and China, you’re not supposed to give these as gifts to friends unless a death has occurred in their family.
Chinese New Year
Even if you are new to Chinese traditions, two must-do customs are giving all your employees a year-end bonus equivalent to one month’s salary and cleaning your house well between the 20th and the 24th of the 12th lunar month.
Pay attention to cobwebs on the ceiling and clean the upholstery and rugs.
Some more traditional folks buy a paper effigy of the kitchen god of the hearth, Zao Shen, and smear honey or soft candy over his mouth.
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This is because Zao Shen is the intermediary for the family and he reports all our good and bad deeds to the Jade Emperor of the Heavens on the 24th of the 12th lunar month, but with a mouth full of candy, he either cannot talk or only says sweet things when he gets to heaven to report on our deeds.
Chinese New Year is a time to pay off all credit cards and other debts.
On New Year’s Eve, businesses traditionally close early, to allow their staff to go home to start the festivities with their family.
New Year’s Eve reunion dinner tradition
Taoist practitioners prepare a New Year’s Eve reunion dinner and offer it first to their ancestors, that is, deceased loved ones.
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The meal should include noodles for long life, a whole fish for abundant blessing (Yu means fish and is a homonym for Yu of abundance), five kinds of meat, five vegetables, five sets of fruit, seven cups of tea, seven cups of wine, and seven bowls of rice with a red plum or small orange carrot cutting in the centre.
Other foods include dumplings, which the whole family can help make and cook together. The shape of the dumplings is similar to that of ancient Chinese silver ingots; thus, they symbolise wealth.
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Glutinous rice balls (tong yuen) filled with sweet sesame or red bean paste are also made by families as part of the celebrations.
Tong yuen are boiled in sweet ginger syrup and served at the end of the meal. Their round shape represents unity, wholeness and togetherness.
Place a pair of chopsticks by the side of each bowl of rice, but NEVER stick chopsticks into the rice, as this is only done at funeral services.
Traditional families seal the home’s front door after the dinner and wait until the early morning hours to break open the sealed door and burn firecrackers to welcome the blessing of the New Year. Firecrackers chase away evil spirits and welcome in heaven’s blessing.
Do not sweep good luck away
The first 3 days of the New Year celebration are days of the year that traditional Chinese businesses close. It is a time for total rest. No work, not even sweeping the floor is permitted, so that good luck will not be swept away.
It is crucial that no bad words, no scoldings, or any negative thoughts be expressed from New Year’s Eve until after the 3rd day of New Year. Whatever is done these 3 days will resonate for the whole year.
A delightful custom is to give lai see, red envelopes with lucky money, to all of one’s own children, younger relatives, and close friend’s children. Married couples often give two lai see packets to younger single relatives.
This symbolises blessings and good fortune from both spouses. Some mothers collect the lucky money and put it into a savings account for their children’s future education.
The 1st days after the Lunar New Year are the time to travel to see your extended family, especially elderly parents or grandparents.
You are expected to bring gifts of ornately packaged foods, fruit and candy. These visits also give an opportunity for younger people to collect lai see from their senior relatives.
In anticipation of receiving visitors, you should fill your home with red-coloured decorations. The red colour symbolises good fortune and joy.
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Prepare a classic round or octagon-shaped red lacquer Chinese box. Fill it full of candied lotus roots, dried seeds and chocolates to greet your guests.
For the first 15 days of the New Year, temples will be inundated with worshippers jostling for a space to pray for a better year ahead. One of the busiest is Wong Tai Sin Temple.
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This famous temple will open on the eve of New Year and remain open overnight to accommodate the thousands expecting to access the altars to light incense and draw fortune sticks.
At the Po Lin Monastery, Tian Tan Big Buddha looms large over the thousands of Buddhist devotees who make their way to the mountaintop to pray for blessings and a good Year of the Snake.
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From the 1st to the 15th day, you are also expected to give a lai see, as an annual tip, to all the service people you see regularly including bus drivers, restaurant staff, doormen, security guards, the cashier at the supermarket and anyone who has provided service to you during the year.
When it is time to return to work, if you are the boss and especially if you are the company owner, you are expected to give a lai see envelope to each of your staff to welcome them back to work.
The lucky money is luckiest if the lai see envelope is filled with bills that have a red or reddish colour. In Hong Kong that would be a selection of $100 or $1,000 bills.
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This will surely put a smile on your employees’ face, and it bodes well for your organisation when staff start the new year happy.
The 15th day noted as 1/15 on the lunar calendar (12 February) is the Lantern Festival and concludes Lunar New Year celebrations.
Enjoy, eat, celebrate with family and greet everyone with a boisterous Kung Hei Fat Choy – which means wishing you more prosperity. This is the way to welcome in the Year of the Snake.
Text & Photo Cammy Yiu
