Happy Lunar New Year 2021!
We wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year full of good fortune, prosperity and for all your dreams and wishes to come true for the coming New Year! when we meet and greet people during this festive season. So why do we give our best wishes and send fortune during Lunar New Year?!
Lunar New Year or ‘Spring Festival’ is the most important festival in China. It is as important as the Christmas celebration in Ireland. What do the Chinese do during Chinese New Year? Family and friends gather to have dinner together. They share stories from the past year and wish everyone good fortune and luck for the coming year.
Every year, the Spring Festival falls on a different day as it follows the Chinese Lunar Calendar. This year, Chinese New Year falls on Tuesday, February 12, 2021, beginning the year of the Ox. The festival is usually celebrated over a period of 23 days ending with the lantern festival.
The tradition of Chinese New Year is connected to a mythical beast that used to attack the dwellers of an ancient Chinese village. Every year during the nights of the harvest season, this monstrous beast used to attack the village, and eat the villagers especially the children. One day when the villagers went into hiding to escape from the beast’s attack, an old wise man appeared in from of them. To help the villagers from the attack of the beast, the wise man put red decorative papers up around the village and set off firecrackers. This wise act prevented the beast from entering the village as it was afraid of red colour and loud blasting sounds. The villagers followed this method during the harvest season to scare off the beast, and years later these activities gradually developed into a festival.
The Chinese New Year is officially and colloquially is known by different names. For example, the official name of this festival in China is the ‘Spring Festival’. The Chinese diaspora in foreign countries uses the name ‘Lunar New Year’, whereas ‘Chinese New Year’ is the most popular name among the global population.
Red colour as a symbol is very significant during the Chinese New Year. As per the Chinese traditions, the red colour stands for joy, virtue, truth and sincerity. In Chinese traditional art forms, the characters wearing red are considered to be pious, loyal, and king-like. The red colour also symbolises prosperity, as the Chinese word for ‘red’ sounds like the word ‘prosperity’ in Chinese. Based on these reasons, the red colour gets prominence during the Chinese New Year. The cakes, candles, ornaments, dresses, decorations, and all such embellishments get a shade of red during this season.
Apart from this, the Chinese character Fu (福) also is symbolic of ‘fortune’ as per Chinese customs. Fu is also the name of a Chinese male god. The figurines of this Chinese God ornamented with the Chinese letter ‘Fu’ are seen widely during the Chinese New Year as a symbol of fortune. Besides this, the ornamented Fu letter is often displayed upside down in diamond-shaped red decorations during this period. The upside-down posture of Fu characters symbolises the arrival of good fortune, and hence it is very significant as per Chinese traditions.
What do we do before Chinese New Year?
Before we celebrate the Chinese New Year, there are 3 main activities to prepare for the coming New Year.
1. Spring Cleaning
In China, Spring cleaning occurs usually at the end of the Chinese Calendar Year. It is believed that by cleaning and throwing out unwanted items from the past year, bad things are thrown and swept away to make room for good luck and fortune in the coming year.
2. Buying new clothes & shoes
To celebrate Chinese New Year, people will buy and wear new clothes and shoes. This symbolizes a new start to the new year. In China, most people will wear something red to look radiant with joy and people trust this will bring them good luck. On the other hand, it is a tradition that during the first month of the Chinese New Year, people can’t buy shoes as this will bring bad luck throughout the year. Therefore, people will buy new shoes before Chinese New Year.
3. Putting up Chinese New Year Decorations
Red and Gold colourful Chinese New Year Decorations with wonderful sayings and words are put up everywhere in the House. Some common sayings are,
大 吉 大 利 “dai gut dai lay”which means great luck and fortune and everything is prosperous. 恭 喜 發 財. “gung hey fat choi” Happy chinese new year,
萬 事 如 意..”man see yu yee” means everything will go your way.
During Chinese New Year
During Chinese New Year’s Eve & Chinese New Year, there are 3 main activities that we do to celebrate the festive season.
1. Eating Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner, also called a reunion dinner. It is a time for families to be together to have dinner and is believed to be the most important meal throughout the year. At the dinner, there are a few dishes that must be eaten. They include: Whole Chicken (Family as a whole), Fish (Keep lots of savings) & Vegetables (Peaceful & Making money) in the dishes as they represent different fortune meanings in Chinese tradition.
2. Playing with Firecrackers & watching fireworks. It has been a Chinese tradition to set off firecrackers from the first minute of the Chinese New Year outside your house. It is believed to scare away dead spirits so that they don’t come near house. In bigger cities in China, people usually watch Fireworks at the harbor and if you are in some rural areas in China, there are private celebrations in every family too.
3. Giving out red envelopes. This is a tradition between elders and kids. This is the happiest time for kids as they can receive lots of red envelopes filled with money which is a sign of giving out good luck and best wishes from the elders to the kids. It can be from parents, relatives, aunties and uncles. And nowadays, it is a regular gesture that employers will give out red envelopes to the employee on the first day of work returning from the Chinese New Year holidays to wish them good fortune and luck for the coming year.
