Chinese New Year

Hong Kong is preparing itself for the biggest holiday celebration of the year, the Chinese New Year. The Chinese New Year festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar (February 3^rd) and ends on the 15^th day with the Lantern Festival. Wherever you look you can see signs of the upcoming festival with buildings brightly decorated in red and gold and shops even more busy than usual as the locals pour out their money to buy presents, decorations and food for the New Year’s festivities. Products in the shape of rabbits can also be seen everywhere as the Chinese New Year welcomes the Year of the Rabbit.

Shops around town are selling red and gold decorations

 

   

New Year's decorations in our mall



The story behind Chinese New Year is that a monster lived near a village and would attack the village on New Year’s Eve to eat the livestock, crops and even villagers. To keep the monster away red paper was pasted on doors, torches were lit and firecrackers set off as it was believed that the monster fears the colour red, the light of fire and loud noises. These three traditions remain key features of the current Chinese New Year.  

The Chinese New Year also witnesses the world’s largest human migration with migrant Chinese travelling home to spend Chinese New Year with their families. In 2010 an estimated 210 million Chinese hit the planes, buses and trains – the equivalent to the whole population of Brazil packing their suitcases. In China, where much of the migration takes place, it’s been claimed that trains are so overcrowded that people wear diapers for their +24hr journeys home. (Source: http://gohongkong.about.com/od/chinesenewyear/a/Chinese-New-Year-Facts.htm)

Some interesting facts about Chinese New Year:

• Almost all of the New Years decorations are red because the colour red ties closely to wealth and good luck in Chinese culture.
• The most important day of Chinese New Year is Chinese New Year’s eve and the first day of Chinese New Year. Shops will close for these two days although some will stay closed for up to 8-10 days. 
• On the days before the New Year celebrations Chinese families give their home a thorough cleaning to sweep away any ill-fortune in hope to make way for good incoming luck. Cleaning products are then put away on New Year’s Eve so that the newly arrived good luck cannot be swept away.
• It's estimated that a sixth of the world celebrate Chinese New Year, including more than 1 billion Chinese citizens.
• Mandarins are considered traditional symbols of abundance and good fortune and are therefore displayed as decorations and presented as gifts to friends and relatives. 
  

I'll be visiting some of the New Year's celebrations so I'll make sure to post some pictures of the festivities later this week.

Sun nien fai lok (Happy New Year)!