Late CNY post

haha,,
sorry for the late posting,,, ( eventho I already told u that I'll submit a new post yesterday >,<) yesterday was a busy day... but for starter,, a bit info about CNY for those who doesn't even know what the hell CNY is..

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Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is often called the Lunar New Year ,celebrated by all chinese across the globe. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the chinese calender and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year's Eve is known as Chúxī. It literally means "Year-pass Eve".

mostly quoted from wikipedia, but edited a bit by me.

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depends with the region, most people celebrate CNY in different ways ( the activities )

for instence :



Yusheng , yee sang or yuu sahng (simplified chinese: 鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng) is a Chaozhou-style raw fish salad. It usually consists of strips of raw fish (most commonly salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients. Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but since "fish (鱼)" is commonly conflated with its homophone "abundance (余)", Yúshēng (鱼生) is interpreted as a homophone for Yúshēng (余升) meaning an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor.

Today, this dish is served as an appetizer to raise 'good luck' for the new year and is usually eaten on the CNY eve or on Renri, the seventh day of the Chinese New Year. In a celebration known as "lo hei" (Cantonese 撈起 or 捞起), families and friends gather around the table and, on cue, proceed to toss the shredded ingredients into the air with chopsticks while saying 吉祥话 (Jíxiáng Huà, auspicious wishes) out loud to mark the start of a prosperous new year and it's customary that the higher you toss, the greater your fortunes!
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this kind of dishes is usually served by chinese in Malaysia, Singapore, China and some other part around the globe, but, in my country, Indonesia, we are not eating this dishes.

but instead of talking about the difference, let us discuss the similarities.

1st thing 1st, CNY means cleaning time~
we clean our house as clean as possible......
and it is a war against time ( especially if u have a big house )

when i was a kid, i always help my maids and mom to clean the house ( i found it fun to clean while playing )
but not anymore
I'm a bad son now~ wakkaak........

It is believed the cleaning sweeps away the bad luck of the preceding year and makes their homes ready for good luck.

2nd. visiting / pray to our ancestors

You can choose whether you go to your ancestor's tomb to pay a visit + praying or just praying at your home.
Well, my family choose pray at home, and we done this the day before CNY, here ar the pics :




click to enlarge

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the ritual itself is a bit long, so im not really remember the step by step.

but here are some facts :

the number of bowls represent the number of our ancestors.

each colour of the fruits represent something.

each dishes also represent something.

but unfortunately, im not really remember what is what @_@ LOL

3rd. do not throw garbage !!

in chinese new year, we are not allowed to throw garbage, i dont really remember the reasons why, but i think it is related with prosperity and stuffs.

they even said that, few decades ago ( when my grandma still young ), we can not throw the garbage up to 3 days !!

and in those 3 days, the garbage that we produce is like a mountain !!!
XD

4. do not turn off the light !!

at the eve of CNY until the CNY we are not allowed to turn off the light in our home, well, its also something related with superstitious..

i think that light is as a guidance or signal so that the luck will come to us, so the brighter the home, the more luck will come.

correct or not ?

5. do not close the door !!

same as above, superstitious,,,,,
( welcome to robbers !! it's a right place to go to )

luck comes in, bad luck comes out~


6. do not sleep until midnight+

do not worry with robbers, we are still wide awake to welcome you !! XD


7. pray at midnight

( continuation from no.6 ) when the midnight comes, 00.00, we pray to god for a prosperous, health, wealth, etc year ahead.
( we are greedy, thats why we asked for everything. LOL )


8. hongbao


this is what kid and teens waiting for,,,,
the best blessing of the year.

FREE MONEY~

that comes with a red envelope.

the size of hongbao is varies, from small, medium to big size.

the size of the hongbao represent the status in the family.

the small hongbao is always given to the kids and teens.

the medium hongbao is given to young adults who havent married.

the big one is for the elder.

but nowadays, people tend to give kids, teens and young adult the same size of hongbao, since too much hassle / work to differentiate and prepare that much hongbao differently.
( but it seems that the recipient also didnt mind bout that, since what they mind is the contain rather than the envelope.... LOL )

but for the elder, it still the same. Elder gets the biggest and preetiest hongbao as a symbol of respect from the younger ones.


9. and the list goes on,,,



p.s : sorry for my lack of determination in writing this post
especially the half end, it seems that im not that interested to write, aint I ? LOL

im kindda distracted with something, maybe I'll edit this post soon~
see ya soon~