Dried Food | Singapore Travel Photo Blog @ travelerfolio.com

The End of Chinese New Year Festivities

The celebration of 15-day Chinese New Year festival has just come to an end on 9 Feb. The 15th day of the first lunar month is “Yuan Xiao” festival (元宵节) and it’s also the first night of the lunar year to see a full moon. There shall be many beautiful lanterns hanging around for people to appreciate, and people will try to solve riddles on the lanterns and eat Tangyuan (glutinous rice balls). The day is also known as Chinese Valentine’s day. In ancient China, it was the night that girls were allowed to leave homes to appreciate lanterns along the streets and they would drop their handkerchiefs for young men to pick them up and get to know the girls! I guess nowadays girls hardly use handkerchief but tissue packs to reserve dining tables during crowded lunch hours (especially in Singapore)!

Chinese New Year rice cake – “Nian gao” (年糕) sounds like “年高”, which literally means “increasingly prosperous year in year out”.

Chinese New Year in Lion city

You gonna see a series of posts in “red” cos Chinese New Year is coming soon and red is liberally used in all decorations! This year, the first day of of the first lunar month falls on 26 Jan.

Chinese homes are often decorated with paper cutouts (剪纸) of Chinese auspicious phrases and New Year’s couplets (春联) written on two strips of red papers, fresh flowers, plants and red lanterns that you can see here. Traditionally, lanterns are believed to scare away evil spirits while brightening the mood with the red glow of good luck.

In Chinese, “Fish” (鱼) and “abundant” (余) have the same pronunciation, so fish in the Chinese culture symbolizes wealth, like a popular Chinese phrase “年年有余” which means “may there be surpluses every year”. Fish also symbolize harmony, marital happiness and reproduction because they multiply rapidly.

The most popular fish motif found in Chinese art and culture is the Chinese carp or koi fish. The carp symbolizes strength and perseverance. Its scales and whiskers resemble that the dragon, a great symbol of power in China. Now, you can eat mango jelly koi! (Price tags shown in this post are in Singapore dollar.)

During Chinese New Year celebrations, families and friends make “new-year visits” (拜年) to one another’s homes. Every household keeps their tables topped up with sweet and savoury specialties to welcome relatives and friends with festive treats. With these irresistible temptations, it takes much discipline not to overeat and stay healthy!