The Reunion dinner on the eve of Chinese New Year is always the highlight of the celebration. It is a Chinese New Year tradition where family members gather together for dinner. Even those who are overseas will make an effort to be home for this Reunion dinner.

Some Chinese New Year traditions are the same wherever there are Chinese celebrating the lunar new year while some traditions are only associated with the migrant Chinese in their new homeland.

Chinese New Year is also referred to as the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival. Whatever name you call it you can be sure it is great time of rejoicing.

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.

India Culture is rooted in colorful traditions that date back to the beginning of human civilization. This time period is referred to as ancient India culture. During this time period the birth of the of Indus Valley Civilizations Occurred. One civilization, known as Harappa, started the oldest living religion. Many traditions, ceremonies and rituals, dance and other cultural aspects of Indian culture started here.
The people of India have found ways to incorporate rich and beautiful color into all aspects of life. You can find unique colors in beautiful rugs, paintings, clothing items,bangles, textiles, architecture, food, and state symbols like the Indian flag.Bangles form a traditional part of the Indian jewelry collection of every woman.

Indian Bangles and the Honeymoon
Indian wedding preparations will often include a bride’s best friend or sister helping her put on the smallest glass bangles possible.  Luxurious hand massages and scented oils are used to be able to put on bangles that otherwise would be too small.  The smaller the bangles around your wrist, the less likely they are to break.
Why all this work?  The saying goes that the honeymoon lasts until the last glass bangle breaks.
Glass Bangles, Husbands, and Luck
Often you will see Indian women wearing huge armfuls of glass bangles, even while doing day-to-day chores.  It is said that bangles bring safety and luck to ones husband.  If a woman breaks glass bangles (especially a large amount of them) her husband is in danger.
With all that power a woman and her bangles wield, a husband better be on his best behavior if he knows what’s good for him
Bangles are traditionally known as churiyaan or kangna in India. These bangles are worn by both men and women in different styles and materials. They are often sported on the wrist but on occasion worn as arm bands also. Bangles are circular in shape and not as flexible as bracelets and the size cannot be adjusted to fit different hands. It is available in sizes based upon the circumference of a closed palm measured in inches.

In India there are meanings associated with each color of bangle:
Red ~ Energy / Love
Blue~ Tranquility / Wisdom
Purple ~ Independence
Green ~ Luck
Orange ~ Success
Yellow ~ Happiness
White ~ New Beginning or Purity
Black ~ Power / Strength
Silver ~ Strength / Purity
Gold ~  Fortune

In Mexico it’s traditional to eat 12 grapes at the chimes of midnight, making a wish with each one. Houses are decorated in the color red, and wishes are made for the New Year. In Mexico City the New Year celebrations occur in Zocalo, which is the main large plaza of the city.

has a New Year’s Eve tradition referred to as “first-footing”. The first-footer is the first person to cross the threshold and enter a house in the New Year. Signifying a bearer of good luck, the first footer (often young and dark-haired) carries with them a coin, bread, salt, whisky, or coal, depending on what the family is wishing for in the New year.

At midnight on January 1st, Buddhist temples across Japan ring their bells 108 times, to ward off the 108 sins in Buddhist belief. Traditional food on this date is a dish of seaweed, fish cakes, mashed sweet potato, burdock root, and sweetened black soybeans, called osechi, as well as kagami mochi, which are rice cakes topped with oranges. Postcards are sent to friends and family celebrating the New Year, and haiku poetry is celebrated with themes of new beginnings.

Traditional Chinese New Year Food is a symbol of prosperity, good luck, health and long life for everyone at the table. Each and every food, either by its appearance or the pronunciation of its name, symbolizes age old Chinese beliefs. Traditional Chinese New Year Food like dumplings, spring rolls, wishes good things for the coming year.

Oranges and tangerines are “must” fruits on Chinese New Year. The round fruits are said to bring luck and wealth. The tradition is rooted on the fact that the Chinese words for gold and orange sound alike. The Chinese word for tangerine sounds like “luck” too. Most traditional Chinese bring presents of oranges and tangerine when visiting friends and family on New Year. It’s important that the number of fruits be even but make sure it is not divisible by four as four is the number of death. Pomelo is a popular Chinese New Year fruit too as it signifies “continuous prosperity and status.” As with almost all traditional New Year food the Chinese word for the fruit sounds like “prosperity” and “status”.

Nian Gao is a traditional Chinese sticky cake that is offered to the Chinese Kitchen God for favors when he returns to heaven before the start of the New Year season.  Cakes are symbols of a rich life and family togetherness in Chinese culture. Nian Gao is a type of food made of glutinous rice pounded into a paste and moulded into shape. There is a picture of Nian Gao at part one of this series.

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