A Dummy's Guide to Chinese New Year

Each tick of a clock happens once, and once only. By the time a human ear registers its arrival, the moment in time it articulated has already moved from the future and into the past. It’ll never be heard again. It’s the same for every tick that has ever been pronounced, and will be so for every tick yet to be born. But while the ticking of a clock is absolute in its dependability and consummate in its ubiquity, not everyone’s tick is in the same place.

Most people would agree upon the duration of a second, and by extension the delineation of a minute. They’d also likely extrapolate from that a shared understanding of an hour, and thus a day, but the location of that day in the great sequence of recorded time is a point on which people become divided depending on their culture.

As I write this, for instance, my Gregorian calendar says the year is 2012, but if I were Jewish that number would be 5772, or 1433 if I were Islamic. Each of these calendars brings with it a different demarcation of the passing of a year, which is pretty ground-breaking if you, like me, assumed that everyone – regardless of creed or place – linked arms to sing Auld Lang Syne on the 31^st December every year.

Which is why you shouldn’t be surprised to discover that roughly 1.4 billion people will be celebrating Chinese New Year on Monday 23^rd January, and neither should you feel any trepidation about joining them. Here’s everything you need to do to ensure the coming year will be an auspicious one…

A Blessing in Disguise

It is important to hang the Chinese character Fu on your front door – like a wreath at Christmas – but, crucially, to do so upside down. Fu means ‘blessing’ or ‘happiness’, but when pronounced in its inverted orientation it is the same as the Chinese word for ‘arrival’. Thus, taken altogether, the message conveyed is the arrival of blessing and happiness.

But there isn’t much point in doing this without also taking the opportunity to purge your house of filth and grime, and so sweeping all bad luck out of the door with it. Failure to do so might prompt the newly introduced blessing and happiness to take themselves off to a nearby Travel Lodge instead.

Once complete, re-clutter every surface of your house – both inside and out – with red and gold decorations, the former being a symbol of luck in China, the latter being one of wealth. It doesn’t matter if you’ve neither luck nor wealth when you do it, the point is that you’re trying to encourage them in the coming year. Indeed, you’ll find that the palette of Chinese New Year consists almost solely of these two colours, and their symbolism runs through just about every custom and tradition involved with the celebration.

A Red-Letter Occasion

When the big day arrives, it is traditional to dress in a fresh set of red clothes, symbolic of a new start to the new year, and then to give a red envelope containing money, known as Hong Kao, to any children you might have. Again, this is not dissimilar to the tradition of giving a stocking at Christmas; in fact, depending on the style of red attire you’ve chosen, you might even look like Santa Claus too.

The amount of money you put in the envelope is up to you, but bear in mind that the Chinese believe 8 to be a particularly auspicious number, while odd denominations are more frequently associated with the cash gifts that would be given at a funeral. You’re better off sticking to even amounts, but beware that the Chinese determine what is odd and even by the first figure of a number, not the last. To be honest, it might just be easier to give sweets instead, which are often included within the packet anyway.

The theme of concealed money can also be found in the culinary feast that most Chinese families enjoy together the night before, on New Year’s Eve. Gold bar-shaped dumplings called jiaozi are traditionally served, of which one contains a coin. The person who finds the coin is believed to receive luck for the ensuing year, unless, of course, they chip their tooth on the coin in the process.

Go Out with a Bang

It wouldn’t be a celebration – and it certainly wouldn’t be Chinese – without a firework display, the origin of which can be traced back to ancient times when the abrupt explosions and violent flares of detonating gunpowder was believed to repel evil spirits. Indeed, they are an especially effective deterrent to the Nian, a beast that once appeared with a special penchant for children in coincidence with New Year. Unfortunately, the Nian is also terrified of the colour red, which gives it very little chance in trying to gate-crash New Year parties.

The story of the Nian is portrayed by the lion dance that weaves energetically through the myriad street celebrations which mark Chinese New Year. Two performers manipulate the jiggling creature into a stream of entertaining paroxysms to the delight of onlookers, demonstrating techniques and movements that can be very closely associated with martial arts. In a few days, the lion will be ushering in the year 4710, 4709 or 4649, depending upon which epoch you subscribe to, and everyone here at My Destination hopes it is both an exceedingly prosperous one for you. Xin Nian Hao – Happy New Year!

Alex Plim, My Destination
January 2012

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