HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

Preparations for the New Year begin a couple of weeks before the big day. This is a fun time full of anticipation and joy as people get ready for the thrill and excitement of the celebrations. According to the traditions, this is the time to clean the house, prepare food for the feast and make banners and decorations special for the New Year. Remembering and paying respects to the ancestors to earn favours and good fortune for the New Year is also important at this time.

Before the New Year comes, it is one of the Chinese New Year customs to clean the house from top to bottom to get rid of all the bad luck gathered in the previous year. When the New Year comes, you cannot sweep during the first days, otherwise you will sweep away all the new luck. Cleaning the house also means settling all your unfinished business like paying off all your debts, resolving all quarrels with friends, and catching up with homework. This, they believe, helps start fresh for the New Year.

Red and gold banners with New Year messages of good luck decorate the entrances of houses as well as business establishments. And accordingly, you could decorate the entrance to your room, or put them up in the living room or near your main door. Red and gold are lucky colors for the Chinese, red symbolizes vitality of life and happiness, gold represents wealth and prosperity.

On New Year’s Day, the families come together to celebrate and everything must be ready for this important fest. Food must be prepared ahead of time. One of the popular Chinese New Year superstitions dictates that all knives must be put away. Using a knife during the first days of the New Year “cuts off” all the good luck for the coming year.

The New Year’s feast takes many days to prepare. In addition, food for the next couple of weeks must be plentiful as there will be hoards of visiting relatives and friends. Remember that food is very important to Chinese, but even more so, this is a time of abundance; lots of food signifies prosperity for the coming year.

So, now that all the preparations are done with, the long-awaited day arrives and the New Year’s festivities can begin! There are many more Chinese traditions observed during this joyful time of the year.