Ringing in the new year

On 19 February 2015, more than a billion people will kick-off 15 days of festivities to celebrate the Lunar New Year – one of the most important festivals for people in China, many parts of Asia and in cities and towns worldwide. Although celebrated in different ways around the world, Lunar New Year is a time for families to get together, honour deities and ancestors, and ring in the new lunar calendar. Legend has it that the festival, which has origins dating back to the 14th Century, started when a mythical creature, called a Nian, arrived to Peach Blossom village on the first day of the new year to eat livestock, crops and even children. An old wise man advised the villagers to hang red paper and set off firecrackers to scare the Nian away. From then on, the Nian never returned to the village and peace reigned.

Year of the goat

Lunar New Year is closely tied to the Chinesezodiac, which assigns each year to a different animal on a 12-year cycle. The Chinese zodiac, together with the corresponding animal symbols, was first created between 206 BC to 220 AD. According to Chinese belief, each animal zodiac has its own lucky numbers, days and colours. In 2015, the year of the goat, experts predict that the numbers two and seven, and colours brown, red and purple will bring good luck to those born in the next 12 months.

Traditions and rituals

Before the holiday approaches, people commonly practice some form of spring cleaning to rid their homes of huiqi, or “inauspicious breaths”, collected in the previous year. Traditionally, a clean house is meant to appease the Kitchen God, who will descend from heaven for his annual inspection. Many people also worship their ancestors in ancestral halls and temples, visit tombs of the deceased and place couplets and scrolls printed with lucky messages on household gates. Most festivalgoers wear new clothes, cut their hair and clear all their debts. In fact, many of the Lunar New Year rituals are meant to welcome the new year with a clean slate, which brings good luck to the household and long life to the family.

Red blessings

Most Lunar New Year decorations and traditions centre around the colour red, which symbolises good luck and wards off evil spirits in Chinese and other Asian societies. Most people even dress in bright red. Black, on the other hand, represents bad luck. During the holiday, married couples often give hong bao, or “red packets”, to all children as monetary gifts. The amount of money in the envelope usually ends with an even digit for good luck. As a child growing up in Singapore, I would collect up to $1,000 Singapore dollars from all the red packets gifted by my extended family. It was undoubtedly my favorite time of the year.

An occasion to dance

During the Lunar New Year, lion dance troupes from Chinese martial art schools often perform the traditional custom of cai qing, literally meaning "plucking the greens". The lion performs a dance like a curious cat, and plucks an auspicious green vegetable, usually lettuce, which is tied to a red packet and hung on a pole. In Mandarin, the word cai or “vegetable” is a homophone for “fortune”, and the dance is believed to bring businesses good fortune. Versions of the lion dance are also found in South Korea, Japan, Tibet, Indonesia and Vietnam.

A family reunion

For ethnic Chinese, the reunion dinner on the eve of Lunar New Year is often the biggest and most elaborate meal of the year, with the whole family gathering for this special occasion. A reunion dinner usually features long noodles, symbolising long life. A type of black hair-like algae, fa cai, is also found in many dishes as its name sounds similar to "prosperity". Fish is the last course of the meal, but it is intentionally not finished. The reason for this stems from a Chinese saying, “nian nian you yu” (meaning every year there is leftover), which is a homophone for “being blessed every year". On the final day of the New Year, families gather to make round dumplings shaped like the full moon to symbolise family reunion and perfection.