The Laings Journal
A year of good fortune beckons while plum blossoms flourish and we eagerly look forward to a promising future. Chinese New Year represents the beginning of a Lunar New Year, falling on a different date during each new spring cycle. Welcome spring and allow yourself to be charmed by Laings Chinese New Year campaign.
Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year/ChunJie
Chinese New Year, the most recognised and celebrated festival in Asia, is an increasingly important international occasion and begins with Chinese New Year Eve (ChuXi). This celebration marks the beginning of a new lunar cycle, which has either 29 or 30-day months (excluding February).
While not identical, Chinese New Year shares many similarities to Christmas, both celebrating love, sharing, and giving, with your families and loved ones.
Chinese New Year Traditions
Traditionally prior to Chinese New Year Eve, individuals travel from far and wide, returning to their families to participate in this magical time.
ChunJie emphasises family reunion and reconnection, with different generations banqueting on delicious food and drawing happiness and luck from the centre of their hearts. Red and gold are prominent good fortune colours during this period, representing luck, love and prosperity.
Customs vary from country to country, area to area, and city to city; even individual families embrace and uphold their own unique traditions.
For some, Chinese New Year starts with ceremonies to worship the gods and goodness, and houses will be decorated with spring couplets. Reunion dinners often take place on Chinese New Year Eve and families converse throughout the night until the beginning of the New Year, where firecrackers or national fireworks symbolise a farewell to the bad luck of the previous year, welcoming the opportunity and freshness of the new year. Delicacies are prepared and feasted on during the celebration; in fact, foods with specific sounds in their names and meaning are served a la carte. Red envelopes with lucky money are gifted by married couples to the unmarried juniors or children to demonstrate their love and blessing, while new clothes will be shown off complemented by delicately chosen accessories to reassure loved ones that live away from home that you are doing well.
Zodiac
In our ever-growing interconnected world, the Chinese Zodiac is becoming increasingly popular and understood to form a key element of Chinese New Year. The twelve animals of the zodiac, being the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig rotate cyclically each year.
There are various legends about how the patterns of the animals were decided. One folktale states that the Jade Emperor couldn’t make his mind up on how to place these 12 animals and thus asked the animals to participate in a race by water and land which, ultimately, determined the present-day Zodiac Cycle.
Laings wishes you all a very Happy Chinese New Year in 2022 in the Year of Tiger.
EXPLORE CHINESE NEW YEAR AT LAINGS