Chinese New Year - Day 1

Happy Dog year to everybody!

Chinese have many taboos for the New Year period. Actually, there are more unbelieveable bans, therefore, it causes inconvenience on daily life. But life might find the other way out to smooth it out, all the Gods takes annual leave from Lunar 25th December to the third day of the New Year.

• The first five days of New Year, it is banned to sweep the ground. If it is necessary to sweep the floor, it should be from out to inside, to avoid sweeping the God of wealth (Plutus) out from the house. The garbage will stay in the house until the fifth day, it means to keep fortune in the family.
• It is banned to break crockery to avoid doom. If it happens, the broken item should be covered by red paper, meanwhile, elderly people will say something nice as "碎碎(歲歲)平安"(Sui Sui Ping An)(May every piece bring safety). The broken item will be thrown into river after the fifth day.
• Some people are banned from visiting relatives, like: The family who had a funeral from day 1 to 100 days; the new mother with a child less than 1 month old.
• Day 1 and 2 is the birthday of the God of Water(Arethusa), banned to do laundry. The laundry will be fine to do on the 3rd day to avoid offending the God of Water.
• Do not beat and scold children or argue with someone, it might couse adversities.
• There is a kind of pastry called "Nian Gao" which is made of the flour of glutinous rice and used primarily in the lunar New Year period. Do not give away deep fried Nian Gao, because this reddish pastry means bankruptcy. Also Taiwanese trandition, the family who had funeral in previous year can not have Nian Gao and relatives will provide them Nian Gao.
• During the New Year period, it is banned to have rice porridge or mixed soup and rice to prevent the act of God during travelling.
• Knife and scissors are banned to use during the lunar New Year period, to avoid cutting off good luck or fortune. Therefore, knife and scissors will be hidden for couple days.
• No afternoon nap on the first day of New Year. Younger shouldn't greet elder who is still in bed, it might cause elder to lay on the bed for a whole year or have a long illness.

Those bans might be different from region or area but it must come out from somewhere with some little sense. I don't know why, but I do so. Because of Chickenpox, we still need to have rice porridge for breakfast, hopefully, this year will be better!!! Fingers crossed and touch wood!!!

Here, I carry on the previous post where we told about how to prepare New Year. So, many of us wait for midnight from New Year Eve to announce the beginning of the first day of New Year. Some people will start the fireworks 5 minutes before midnight. Some of them just go crazy with fireworks until 2 AM. Familis will wake up early to dress up and go to visit relatives - Bai Nian拜年 - to pay someone a courtesy call on New Year's Day or shortly thereafter, usually with a present. How do we do Bai Nian? We cup one hand in the other in front of our chest to express respect and raising high in front of the chest a fist made with both hands and then lowering it, and often repeating the motion, meanwhile, we hand over a red envolope and say: Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜發財, May you have good fortune; Zeng Fu Zeng Shou 增福增壽 May you have good fortune, happiness and live longer...etc. As above I mention avoid sweeping the floor, avoid wasting water , avoid anything to do with scissors or knife. That should be all.