(With a little help from Mommy…she was tasked to give a presentation to her classmates on Chinese New Years)
Chinese New Year is a major holiday where we celebrate with friends and family and pay respect to our ancestors.
Chinese New Year is on the first day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar. The lunar calendar is made up of 12 lunar months which is calculated by how long the moon takes to go around the earth. Chinese New Year usually falls in late January or in February. This differs from the Western calendar which we celebrate in the US. This year Chinese New Year falls on January 28th.
On Chinese New Year, we do a lot of traditions to get good luck. One tradition is to burn Chinese paper money for our ancestors. Another tradition is to clean your house. You always want to enter the New Year with a clean house, so clean up today! But don’t sweep tomorrow, because you’ll be sweeping away your luck! On New Year’s Day, you should eat fish and noodles. Fish represents prosperity and noodles represents long life. Elders will also give lucky money in a red envelope. When you get a red envelope, you say “Gong Xi Fa Cai” This means, “congratulations and be rich”. You will also want to wear red. Red symbolizes fire, which according to legend can drive away bad luck.
Each year is represented by 12 zodiac animals. The 12 zodiac animals are rat, oz, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Tomorrow starts the year of the rooster. We are currently in the year of the monkey.
I’m the year of the rat. If you were born in 2008, you would also be the year of the rat. If you were born in 2007 you would be the year of the pig.
