Thursday, January 30, 2014

Celebrate Chinese New Year with some Decorations

In the fourth episode of {Get Ready For CNY14 With Sasha}, I will be sharing some decoration tips for Chinese New Year with you. Please go ahead and check out the first, second, and third part of this special feature if you haven't already done so. 

Decoration plays a key element in holiday celebrations, and just like Christmas, Hanukkah, or other special occasions, Chinese New Year also needs that warm and happy atmosphere. 
1. Red and Gold are THE colours
As you may have already noticed, gold and red are the key players in Chinese New Year's decoration because gold signifies money and wealth while red is believed to bring luck and happiness. 


2. Why fish?
One of my friends asked me last year: "This is the year of SNAKE right? Why there are fish everything?" haha Well, you will continue to see plenty of fish as part of the decoration this year, next year, and the year after... The reason fish plays such a key character in Chinese New year is because its pronunciation is similar to "something left", so having fish every year at home means you have enough resources and are well prepared for the upcoming year.

3. "福"
Maybe some of you have already become very familiar with this Chinese character as it's literally EVERYWHERE. But what does it mean? Well, it means wealthy, but its referral is not only limited to money, but could also associate with happiness, good health, uplifting career, united family and more. Another interesting thing is that many Chinese would put this character up side down on the door since the pronunciation of "down" is the same as "arrival". 

4. Couplet
Usually Chinese would buy a couplet of two short sentences written on red papers, and then glued them on each side of the front door. The sentences are generally associated with good wishes and wisdom words. This is not only considered as a welcoming note to the guests, but also was hoped to bring good fortune in the new year.

5. Cleaning the house
Cleaning is part of the decoration as well. And trust me, it's actually the most important part. In Chinese culture, it's believed that cleaning your home inside out before the new year comes would get rid of all the bad luck. However, you should put all the cleaning equipments off sight after the new year countdown because cleaning on the first day of new year is believed will sweep your luck away. 








Anyway, you might think some of these are quite superstitious, but at the end of day, it's all about embracing a fresh beginning with warm and pleasant decorations. Hope after reading this post, you have learnt something interesting about Chinese New Year. :)

1 comment:

  1. Not too different from the Vietnamese one.

    http://thevulgariangirl.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete