Monday, January 23, 2012, is officially Chinese New Year – Happy Year Of The Dragon!
Some of the traditions leading up to Chinese New Year include cleaning the house thoroughly to sweep away any bad luck, getting haircuts, and paying off debts to start the New Year fresh, and decorating the house with red paper cutouts of Chinese auspicious phrases and couplets with themes of good fortune, happiness, wealth and longevity. Often these red decorations are hung upside down, symbolizing the arrival of fortune and spring. On New Year’s Eve, a big feast is served with an assortment of dishes, all with symbolic meanings. During the fifteen day period, everyone visits friends and relatives to wish them Happy New Year, “Xin Nian Kuai Le,” (Mandarin Chinese) or “Gun Hay Fat Choy,” (Cantonese Chinese), and children receive red packets of money (“hung bao”). Only pleasant words are exchanged.
Food is a central part of the Chinese culture, and the Chinese New Year dinner is the biggest feast of the year. The Chinese culture is all about symbolism and the dishes served for New Year’s are full of symbolic dishes to usher in the New Year. Some foods are selected because they sound like another word that means prosperity, luck, wealth or good fortune. Other foods are served because they resemble money or gold. A traditional Chinese New Year dinner might include a whole chicken (family unity), a whole fish (surplus), duck (happiness), lobster (life and energy), Buddha’s Delight (a vegetarian dish made with symbolic ingredients), shrimp (wealth and abundance), oysters (good fortune), scallops (shaped like ancient coins), tea eggs (fertility), noodles (longevity), jiao-tze or dumplings (shaped like old coins), and spring rolls (resemble gold bricks). Tangerines, oranges and pomelos are given out for good luck and abundance.