Celebration Memories of Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year Celebration Bicultural Mama — Credit: Pexels.com

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday celebration in China. It’s a celebration that lasts for 15 days. The date that Chinese New Year begins changes every year as it is based on the lunar calendar, or the monthly cycles of the moon.

Growing up, I remember that in the weeks prior to Chinese New Year, my mom would ensure the house was cleaned. Though it may not be unusual for people to clean before a holiday, there was a symbolic reason for this in Chinese tradition. For Chinese New Year, it was important to sweep the house because this represented sweeping out bad luck from the prior year.

My mom would also display a dish of mandarin oranges with leaves still attached to the stem. Oranges were believed to bring wealth because the word for gold (Jīnzi) was similar in pronunciation to the word for orange (Júzi). The leaves represented longevity, so it was important to keep them on.

The display dish would also include lots of candy, a treat otherwise scarce for us throughout the year. Candy symbolized wishes for a rich and sweet life because of its sweet taste.

The color red played an important role in this holiday. In Chinese culture, the color red represents good luck. Therefore, decorating the house in red and wearing red clothes meant we were welcoming in good luck for the new year.

But what we were most excited about were the red envelopes. Elders in the family would give these to children to wish them a prosperous new year and good luck (thus, the red color). The envelopes would contain money, and between all the relatives we could collect a nice sum!

On Chinese New Year’s Eve, my mom would cook a family-style dinner with at least 8 dishes as the number 8 was considered lucky in Chinese culture. We ate traditional foods like Long-Life Noodles and made sure to not break the strands while eating them. Like the name implied, the noodles represented long life, so shorter noodles meant the opposite!

Another traditional food was dumplings which represented wealth because the shape of the dumpling was similar to the shape of gold ingots, the money used in ancient China. These were just a few of the many symbolic foods associated with Chinese New Year.

chinese dumplings jiaozi — Credit: Pixabay.com

Today with my own children, we celebrate Chinese New Year in many of the same ways that I did in my own childhood. My mom is a much better cook than I am when it comes to Chinese cuisine. However, I do make sure we have 8 dishes on the table whether it’s ordering in food, buying some from the store, or making a few on my own. It’s a celebration I want us to honor every year.

I hope that one day my children will continue with the holiday traditions and with their own families.