Happy New Year — again
We turn the page to a new month while millions are celebrating the New Year of the goat.
The end of January and beginning of February mark the celebration of Chinese New Year. This ancient holiday, which no one is quite sure of the origin, is also referred to as the Spring Festival.
On the small island of Singapore that sits at the tip of Malaysia, millions will celebrate the holiday. There won’t be snow like in Beijing, but 90-degree weather and plenty of rain.
“We always like to start the holiday off clean, so we clean up the house and buy new clothes,” Lay Lay Pagode said.
Pagode is the mother of three children. She grew up in Singapore and married a Singaporean. At a class she gave about the traditions of Chinese New Year, she explains that it is a time-honored celebration that refuses to die.
“We celebrate the new year because my parents always did. It’s tradition,” Pagode said.
No different than Americans they believe in a little spring cleaning for a good start. Also a very traditional celebration will include new clothes. For the 15-day celebration each child will receive new clothes every day.
The celebrations are much like Christmas in America. It is time to visit family and friends and put all past grudges away.
“The celebration of the new year is full of superstitions,” Pagode said. “If you break something it’s bad luck. If you sweep the floor on the first day of the new year, it has to be towards the center of the room. We visit with our families, but never on the third day of the celebrations.”
Pagode says the third day is said to be the day of contention, so everyone stays home.
One of the most loved traditions is hongbao. This includes little red envelopes that married couples give to children and unmarried adults. Inside the little red envelope is the real treat, money. From $2 up to $1,000, but only even amounts, odd amounts will bring bad luck.
“I still receive hongbao from family members, it’s almost like their way to show me that they are married and I am not,” Michelle Chia said.
Chia sells antique Chinese paintings at the Tanglin Mall. When Chia came to Singapore to go to the university six years ago she had no idea it would become home.
“I wanted to go back to China for the new year but I just can’t afford it, so I am celebrating the new year with some close friends, it’s not the same,” Chia said.
Wealth and prosperity are things most looked forward to in the new year. The saying “Gong Xi Fa Chi” actually means have a prosperous new year.
Everything they eat and do has to deal with tradition and things that will bring them happiness in the year to come. They do this by eating such things as pumpkins, for prosperity, mandarin oranges for safety and fish, for a
surplus.
“Every year my co-workers and I eat a traditional new year dish called the life salad,” Jennifer Hian Ho said.
Ho explained that everyone tosses the salad together. The higher up they toss it the better the promotion at work.
“Most of us will be tossing the salad pretty low this year, we are hoping for job transfers,” Ho said. “America isn’t the only one who is hurting economically right now.”
According to Chinese tradition, a person could be born a rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog or boar. Children born in the year of the goat will be in the same year as Gene Hackman and George Harrison. Goats are believed to be artistic, but worry too much.
“I’m not very excited for the year of the goat because it is not that lucky,” Chua Kong Wenjia said.
Wenjia’s sister was expected to have a baby in the new year of the goat. She also believed it wouldn’t be a lucky year.
“She had her baby last week,” Wenjia said. “But if she hadn’t, she said she was going to ask for a cesarean procedure.”
Many hospitals in Asia experienced this same trend, because people prefer to have babies in the year of the horse.
“I don’t believe people born in the goat year are ill-fated, I just don’t want my son to grow up with the feeling he was born in a bad year and use that as an excuse not to excel,” said Guo Wenjia, the proud father of Zama Wenjia, who was born in the year of the horse.
On the first night of the new year fireworks explode everywhere.
“They will scare away any bad omen,” Pagode said.
“The important thing is to think positively during the new year celebrations, it can shape the new year,” Pagode said. “We’ll take the rain, snow or wind and just smile and say ‘Gong Xi Fa Chi’. Hopefully this year will be a lucky, prosperous and peaceful one for everyone.”
–dibert@cc.usu.edu
Smith Street in singapore, is decorated with lights for the celebrations, the lights and red lanterns are said to scare off any evil and show the God of Wealth the way.