» Happy Chinese New Year - Hate The Grind

Gung Hei Fat Choy!

Tommorow is Chinese New Years, so Happy New Year to all my chinese readers or anyone else that celebrates it! :) 2007 is Year of the Pig (Boar) in the Chinese Lunar calendar. It is tradition to clean up the house, relax and enjoy the holidays, and of course exchange lucky red packets (”lai see” in cantonese, or “hong bao” in mandarin) of money. I had my Chinese New Years dinner last weekend because an uncle from Hong Kong was in town and I will be having a smaller dinner tommorow as well to ring in the New Year.

This time of year, superstitions run rampant in chinese families. A couple that I have heard of are:

It is bad luck to cut hair during Chinese New Year

It is bad luck to buy new books during Chinese New Year

Giving out red pockets with money inside will bring Good Luck

Eating an 8-course meal for Chinese New Year brings Good Luck

So make sure you don’t buy new shoes or cut your hair if you want to ensure you have good fortune for this upcoming year! It seems like chinese superstitions are all based on words that sound alike. “hair” sounds like “rich” or “prosperity” in cantonese so you would not want to cut away all your prosperity. “book” sounds like “lose”, so thats an obvious one. Whatever you do, don’t celebrate by cooking a meal for your family that only has four dishes!

If you know of any other interesting superstitions, post in the comments!

Did you like this post? If so share with others: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.