The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival is celebrated every January, usually towards the end of the month or sometimes in the middle of the western world's calendar.
As with all Chinese celebrations, the Chinese New Year revolves around food - the preparation and eating of food. It is customary as soon as a guest enters a Chinese person's home, to ask them if they are hungry or if they have eaten. The Chinese New Year meal is extremely elaborate.
Beginning on New Year's Eve, families gather for a reunion feast that generally includes nian gao a rice pudding cake-like creation that is somewhat sticky and is said to help people move ahead to a higher arrangement and wealth, step by step.
Northern China gave the New Year's Eve celebration the dumplings or Jiao Zi which look like the golden coins yuan bao for money during the Ming Dynasty and to pronounce the word correctly, it sounds like the name for the earliest paper money used. So people believe serving them at New Year's Eve will bring everyone prosperity and wealth.
In order to claim they have money at the changing of the New Year, people will eat their 'money food' at midnight. In addition, several cooks will hide a clean coin in one of the dumplings for a lucky person to find. In addition, to insure they will have good fortune in the upcoming New Year and to avoid misfortunes, most of the dishes are prepared with whole foods; nothing is cut upon with a knife, using anything like a knife or cleaver during the holiday is considered unlucky.
Long noodles are used at the table in order to guarantee each person at the New Year's table will have a long, healthy life. Happiness, longevity and prosperity all seem to show up in the names of the dishes served at the Chinese New Year meal. Hoe see fat choy is hair seaweed with dried oysters and sounds like good business and wealth. When visiting a family, couple or individual on the Chinese New Year, it is customary to bring a gift such as oranges or tangerines because their Chinese names sound like wealth or gold.
Fish is another staple of the Chinese New Year's meal, although it is never fully eaten to insure that the family has a year of good fortune and the fish is always carp because it symbolizes a profitable year ahead.
There is always a platter of either five meats or five vegetables which is symbolic of the five blessings of the New Year - riches, longevity, virtue, wisdom and peace.
During the week long celebration, each family keeps their dinning table filled with sweets and savory specialties to offer quests as they stop by. Another tray is filled with delicious treats such as sweetened lotus roots which symbolize abundance, sweetened lotus seeds which symbolize fertility and dried melon fruit which is a symbol for profuse earnings in addition to various sweet treats, candies which are a sign of long-term sweetness.
In the new year there is now a regular on the popular modern society do traditionally red packets are also handed out to younger generation by their parents, grand parents, relatives, and even close neighbors and friends during Imlek. Nowadays giving red packets as a bonus at the year-end by employers becomes popular and Imlek parcel is also a tradition of giving to business associates or relatives.
Giving Imlek parcel to employees prior to the New Year is also a good idea. This can be either a gift or a bonus. If it is as a gift, the money should be just right for a gift. If as a bonus, you may enclose a check in the parcel gift and hand it out in an office.
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