Chinese New Year is a joyful time

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Chinese New Year 2023 celebrates the Year of the Rabbit, or, more specifically, Water Rabbit, starting on January 22, 2023 and lasting until February 9, 2024.

On Sunday January 22 the four generations of Lam family gathered at the Happy House Chinese take away in Rye to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Chung-Man Lam and Kim-Ying grew up in Hong Kong and both migrated to England as teenagers to study. They met in Gillingham and married and moved to Rye in the 80s and opened their business Happy House, a popular Chinese take-away.

Their daughter Hue-Ying, who lives in Winchelsea Beach with her husband and two children, had great fun on Sunday celebrating with family and friends. She said that it was like Christmas and New Year all rolled into one.

Chinese New Year at the Happy House
Chinese New Year at the Happy House

The children received Lai Si, a red envelope, in which gifts are presented at social and family gatherings, such as weddings and the Chinese New Year. The red colour of the envelope symbolises good luck and wards off evil spirits for the recipient.

Some interesting facts

London has the biggest Chinese New Year celebration outside Asia, attracting hundreds of thousands of people to the capital each year.

Chinese New Year The year of the Rabbit

According to Chinese folklore: “People born in the Year of the Rabbit usually have soft and tender personality traits. They keep a modest attitude and maintain a pleasant relationship to people around them. They will not be irritated easily, and they also avoid quarrels as much as possible.”

Certain foods are eaten during the Chinese New Year period purely for their symbolic significance, including dumplings, eaten because they represent wealth. The more dumplings you can eat, allegedly, the more money you will make in the new year. Fish is eaten because the word for fish in Chinese, (鱼 Yú /yoo/) sounds like surplus. Oranges and tangerines are displayed because they are believed to bring good luck and fortune because of their pronunciation and characters.

Chinese New Year celebrations in London
Chinese New Year celebrations in London

The Chinese New Year festival causes the world’s largest human migration because for Chinese people the most important part of this special time is to enjoy a reunion dinner with their families on New Year’s Eve, even if they have to travel long distances. Two hundred million people from Chinese mainland travel for these holidays in what is known as the Spring Festival Travel Rush.

Washing hair or clothes is not allowed on the first day of the lunar year because it is seen as washing one’s fortune away. Sweeping up and taking out the rubbish is also seen as removing the good luck from the house, so people do not do that either.

The Chinese New Year is a joyful time for most, but for those still single above the normal matrimonial age, it is not. In China, females are said to be marriageable up to thirty, and males up to thirty-two. Parents become extremely anxious for their “old” single children and in desperation they even try to arrange dating (prospective marriages) for their single children. To solve this problem, a ridiculous solution has been created by the children. Renting a boyfriend or girlfriend just for the new year has become a common occurrence with websites and agents specialising in this business. The price is about 100 yuan (£12) a day.

Image Credits: Hue-Ying Webster , Kt bruce , Sophie Biddell .

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