The fireworks and celebrations may have already waned after the first week of the New Year, but the Year of the Monkey has just begun. We have a whole year to look forward to, and based on Chinese customs, there are things you have to prepare for to bring fun, adventure, luck and good fortune to you and your family.
For weeks, this section has been guiding readers with the art of feng shui, but here’s another side of Chinese culture people have yet to explore – the Hong Kong side. The place has one of the most colorful traditions in warding off bad things and welcoming the good, so the Hong Kong Tourism Board has put together a guide to five of the most auspicious practices for the Chinese New Year. Here’s a list of the things you have to put together to prepare for a prosperous year ahead:
1. Find your partner with Peach Blossom luck
The peach blossom concept is part of the four pillars of destiny calculations called Tao Hua luck and it is said to attract love energy. Yes, love energy, so if you’re looking for Mr. Right or Ms. Right, then this might just be what you need this year. Peach Blossom luck is a special application of feng shui, it is not as simple as just displaying peach blossoms around your home. Depending on your zodiac sign, you need to display an image of your Peach Blossom animal in a specific direction of the home. There are charts about this that you can find online. But for Hong Kongers, they say that all you have to do is walk around a peach blossom tree three times in a clockwise direction, and be ready when true love shows up! Now that sounds a bit easier, all you have to do now is find where to get that tree.
2. Place a tangerine tree at home
Apparently in Chinese, tangerines and luck share the same characters and pronunciation, and the color of the fruit is somehow reminiscent of the gold color so people usually have these orange fruits during the New Year. They say that in order to keep a successful business going, place a tangerine tree at home or at your place of business to attract luck and profit. There are a lot of kiat kiat trees being sold during Chinese New Year, and these will do if you live in the Philippines.
3. Keep your pinwheels spinning for good fortune
The symbolic meaning of a pinwheel is “to turn one’s luck around,” so if you have pinwheels at home, make sure that they are always spinning so you can ward off bad luck and bring in endless good fortune.
4. Bring on the warm blessings with handwritten Fai Chun
Go to Chinatown and find someone who can write phrases wishing for good luck on red paper, along with other phrases for prosperity and other blessings. Stick this Fai Chun on your door for a very fruitful year to come.
5. Decorate your home with plenty of red
As with most of the establishments we’ve seen draped in red during the love month and the Chinese New year celebration, it won’t hurt if you extend the practice to your homes. Red is associated with happiness and good fortune; decorating your house in red not only helps keep those two wonderful things in your home, it also gives off a jubilant and festive atmosphere for any family member or guest.
So, these don’t seem so hard to do. You might want to consider these five things to welcome good luck and fortune for the Year of the Monkey.
For more information, visit DiscoverHongkong.com.