Happy Lunar New Year! Welcome to the year of the fire rooster, when all your dreams could come true.
Based on the Chinese lunar calendar, new year falls on January 28 in 2017, with festivities continuing for up to two weeks. Also known in China as the Spring Festival, it's marked by around one-sixth of the world's population and is celebrated as Tet in Vietnam, Seollal in Korea, Losar in Tibet and Tsagaan Sar in Mongolia.
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Final preparations are underway for Sydney's Chinese New Year Festival, when it celebrates the Year of the Rooster in one of the biggest celebrations of the Lunar New Year outside of Asia.
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2017 Sydney Chinese New Year
Final preparations are underway for Sydney's Chinese New Year Festival, when it celebrates the Year of the Rooster in one of the biggest celebrations of the Lunar New Year outside of Asia.
Celebrations revolve around reunion, harmony and ensuring good luck for the coming year.
In Chinese astrology each zodiac year is associated with an animal sign, plus one of the five elements - so 2017 is the year of the rooster, and the element is fire. It's a rare combination, last seen in 1957, and augurs well for those prepared to work hard.
"This year is special, full of expectation," said Zhao Li, director of the China Culture Centre in Sydney.
She said the rooster is proud and confident, hardworking and punctual. "Fire by its very nature is the element associated with brilliance, warmth, passion, spark," she said. "So a brilliant and enthusiastic rooster, combined with the salient characteristics of fire, heralds an enterprising and fruitful year, a year of results, achievements. This year we can fulfil all of our dreams."
New year is a time of traditions, superstitions and taboos; the Chinese believe what happens at new year influences your fortunes in the year ahead. Here's how to maximise your chances of good health, happiness and success.
Do these things:
1. Visit family and friends to wish them good fortune and prosperity. "It is a time for family reunion," said Ms Zhao. "No matter how far away they are, everyone will try his best to go home for New Year's Eve to pay respects to their parents and elders and strengthen the ties with the other family members. That is why at this time you will see the largest human migration in the world ...a billion people in China travelling at the same time."
Photo: John Shakespeare
2. Spring clean. "Before the new year we clean the house thoroughly to sweep away the old and welcome the good and the prosperous," said Ms Zhao. The head of the University of Sydney's Confucius Institute and an adviser to the City of Sydney's Chinese New Year Festival, Xing Jin, said the new year was a fresh start. "People will clean up their house, throw away the old stuff and buy some new clothes."
3. Decorate the house. "Red and gold ... are lucky colours," said Ms Zhao. "Red symbolises the vitality of life and happiness, the gold represents wealth and prosperity." Hang a red lantern at the door to drive away bad luck, and put living plants such as peach or plum blossoms, orchids and peonies around the house to symbolise growth and rebirth.
4. Feast with family and friends. "The entire family enjoys a big dinner with all the traditional food for good fortune and luck," said Ms Zhao. Lucky foods include fish (for surplus), dumplings and spring rolls (wealth), noodles (longevity), sweet rice balls (family togetherness) and rice cakes or niangao (improvement).
5. Put up spring festival couplets, or chunlian, around your door to call for blessings. A pair of poetry lines pasted vertically on both sides of the door, with a horizontal scroll above the doorframe, they are written on red paper in black or gold calligraphy and are a key part of new year celebrations.
6. Give red envelopes of money. "Even banks give their customers red envelopes [of] what we call lucky money," said Ms Jin. "Adults give them to children to wish them good luck, health, good studies in the coming year." Technology has modernised this tradition, allowing people to exchange red envelopes via apps and the internet.
7. Set off firecrackers. "They are lit in front of the houses and the stores so the evil spirits are scared away by the loud, cracking noises," said Ms Zhao
8. Take care if you're a rooster, born in 1909, 1921, 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993 or 2005. According to Chinese astrology, people can expect obstacles and bad luck in their zodiac year.
9. Wear new clothes, and wear red for joy and happiness (except if you're a rooster - red is your unlucky colour).
10. Watch dragon boat races, or see a dragon or lion dance, to start the year with strength and energy. Dragons and lions are "quite symbolic, very powerful and dynamic", said Ms Jin. "They can scare off the bad evil."
11. Stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve to watch over the arrival of the new year. Open the doors and windows at midnight to send out the old year and welcome the new.
12. Pray for the year ahead at the temple, where bells are often rung. "The Chinese believe ringing a large bell can drive bad luck away and bring good fortune," Ms Jin said.
Don't do these things:
1. Sweep the house or throw out rubbish on New Year's Day, or good luck will be swept away.
2. Use words with negative meanings, like breaking, death, sickness, pain, losing and poverty.
3. Break anything, as it may result in losses or family rifts in the future.
4. Let the rice barrel get empty - it symbolises starvation.
5. Nap, as it could encourage laziness for the rest of the year.
6. Use sharp objects - knives, scissors, needles - for the first three days or so of the new year, as you could cut off good fortune. Don't cut your hair - you don't want to lose the luck of the new year.
7. Lend or borrow money.
8. Buy, give or do four of anything. It's an unlucky number; the word for "four" sounds like the word for "death".
9. Wear black or white, traditional colours of mourning.
10. Eat congee or rice porridge on New Year's morning (it symbolises poverty) or eat meat, out of respect to the Buddhist gods.
11. Let children cry; the sound is believed to bring bad luck.
12. Give gifts such as clocks, scissors, pears, umbrellas, shoes, mirrors or cut flowers - they can all bring bad luck.
13. Take medicine or go to hospital, unless you're seriously ill, or you'll suffer from illness all year.
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