Learn And Understand The Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is a joyous occasion that is celebrated by the Chinese people around the world. There are a few different names that will also refer to Chinese New Year. Those names are the Lunar New Year and Spring Festival. The people in Malaysia mostly will call it Chinese New Year.

During this time, it sets everyone into a very joyous mood. You will normally link Chinese New Year to the red color. For the Chinese people it means Good Luck and Good Health. For short, everything that is good will be even better in the coming year.

There are several customs that comes along with the Chinese New Year. A few popular ones would be the gathering of all the family members that is available to have a family dinner. This is the dinner that will be shared among all the relatives. Normally the dinner will be held at the husband’s family side. Of course there are exceptions to this rule depending on each family how they handle it, but that’s the general rule. Most important of all I guess would be the receiving of the red packets. The kids and people that are not married love this activity, free money for them to go play and spend with. Of course with the kids being happy, the adults will also feel a pinch in their pockets for forking out some money.

The lion dance is a popular dance that is used to bring in an auspicious year to the certain location that has called for it during the Chinese New Year. This is usually called by business people as a saying that this coming year will be a very great year. There are a few things that are normally forbidden to be done during Chinese New Year. This is part of the custom too. Some of the few general things would be, during the first day of Chinese New Year, the floor shouldn’t be swept. The reasoning to this would be because if you swept the floor, means all your luck would be swept out of the house and we wouldn’t want this would we?

The next forbidden general custom would be, you should not cut your hair for a month after the Chinese New Year. If you cut your hair it would entitle you to the loss of your wealth. Hair is wealth!

In Malaysia, during the festive Chinese New Year period, everyone will go back to their home town. In the local slang (in Bahasa Malaysia) it’s called “Balik Kampung”. People from the towns will normally take a very long break from work and go back to their home to visit their loved ones. During this time the city center is normally very quiet. The highways are all empty (This is considered a luxury in the city because most of the time it’s very jammed) but lately more and more people is staying back in the city. The journey back to the hometown is normally quite jammed. For example, on a normal basis if there was no jam I were to travel to destination A in 5 hours, normally plus the jam it will take about 8 hours.

The police will have numerous campaigns to remind all the people that is travelling back to not speed and take frequent breaks if they are tired so that they will be able to recharge and enjoy the joyous season.

Happy Chinese New Year! Have a GREAT and EXCITING YEAR AHEAD!