Happy Chinese New Year! 恭喜发财，万事如意，身体健康，虎年大吉，心想事成，祝你们新年快乐！
To those of you who don't know, Chinese New Year is a traditional holiday for Chinese people. They celebrate their new year based on the Chinese calendar. It is a tradition to go to our oldest family member's house, we will then greet each other with "gong xi fa cai / 恭喜发财" which means, wishing you prosperity and wealth. Or sometimes people will greet each other with good wishes in Chinese, like "万事如意 / 身体健康 / 心想事成 / 新年快乐".
CHINESE ZODIAC
Every year, we celebrate with a different Chinese zodiac, and only after 60 years, will the zodiac repeat again. This year, it is the year of the tiger, people would most likely put pictures of a tiger on decorations, angpaos / 红包, or just a picture of the tiger itself.
Now, you may be wondering, why a tiger? Why this year? Why every 60 years? Not 12? So let me show you a video explaining the legend of these zodiacs.
TRADITIONS
So now that you already understand the Chinese zodiac, you may be thinking, is that it? Well, I am now going to be explaining to you on the different famous traditions in China during the Chinese New Year.
1. ANGPAO / 红包
Chinese New Year is an exciting holiday, where you would meet your family members and eat dinner together, but, aside from all the fun, family members who weren't already married would be getting angpao from the family members who were already married.
Angpao is a red envelope that you would give to someone, but not just any random old envelope. You would be filling those envelopes with money depending on how much you want to give to that person.
These envelopes symbolize good wishes and luck for the new year ahead.
Angpaos are usually more familiarized as red pocket.
2. GOOD LUCK
During Chinese New Year, and the night before the day, Chinese people would tend to believe and obey these rules to obtain good luck.
One of them is, NO CLEANING ON THE DAY OF CHINESE NEW YEAR, so most people would clean their house the day before it. This rule is a belief that if you clean your house, it symbolizes cleaning away the good luck, swiping it away from your house.
The next one is, NO CUTTING YOUR HAIR UNTIL 15 DAYS AFTER THE DAY ITSELF. This symbolizes cutting and throwing away good luck.
Next, PUT THE WRITING FU UPSIDE DOWN, this belief tends to show that good luck falls from the sky into the house. 福 means good luck/fortune. People believe that if you put it in a straight-up position, this means that the luck is drifting away from the house to the sky.
3. FOOD
And last, one of the most famous traditions is to EAT FOOD THAT SHOULD BE EATEN AND NOT EAT FOOD THAT SHOULDN'T BE EATEN. This doesn't mean edible and non-edible food, this means food that has meanings for luck, and food that has meanings for bad luck.
Now that I'm done explaining about the Chinese New Year itself, I am going to be showing you my 2022 Chinese New Year experience.
MY EXPERIENCE
30th of January. My mum and I cut each others hair to get ready for Chinese New Year.
31st of January. My family and I ate Chinese food, following the rules on what should be eaten and what shouldn't be eaten. We also managed to clean the whole house before Chinese New Year.
1st of February. In the morning, my family got into our Chinese New Year outfits and took a family picture. We then immediately went to my grandparents' house and took another picture, we greeted each other with "恭喜发财". We then had a blast dinner there. It was really yummy. At about 8 p.m. we went back home. After we reached home, my brother and I opened our angpaos and got plenty of money.
And that's basically it, my 2022 Chinese New Year Celebration. I wish you and your family a Happy Chinese New Year!
Sources:
- Food
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