Chinese New Year is a traditional custom that Chinese families celebrate every year in their hometowns.
Before the start of the Chinese New Year, all families would rush back to their parent’s home for a reunion dinner. They would buy foods and ingredients for the dinner - one of the most important parts of this dinner is the Yee Sang. The Yee Sang is put on a big round plate and chopsticks would be used to toss the Lao Sang. While doing the Lao Sang, some blessings would be said in Chinese to bring good fortune and luck.
On the first day of Chinese New Year, we would set off some red Chinese firecrackers early in the morning to chase off bad spirits. We would also eat longevity noodles, which is a single string of noodle that has been stretched into one very long piece, for breakfast, normally eating it in chicken broth and a bit of homemade red wine. Children would also say blessings to their elders. In return, they would get their red Ang Pao, which is a red rectangular envelope filled with money. It will only be received by the younger ones from elders who are already married. We children would also go around the neighbourhood and visit other family members to get our Ang Pao, and will count them as soon as possible. We would also go to temples and hope that we were the earlier ones to pay respects to the gods and goddesses.
Chinese New Year also has traditional dances like dragon dance and lion dance. For the dragon dance they would have lots of people each holding a long wooden stick which connects to the body of the dragon. The hardest part in this is not to get the body of the dragon tangled up. For the lion dance, they would have two people to do this - one in front, controlling the head of the lion and the feet, and the other in the back holding onto the one in front to control the hind legs of the lion. They need a lot of skill to perform this because they would need to jump on tall poles for their routines, and some may even do a backflip off the pole.
For me, Chinese New Year is a thing worth celebrating and I hope this year will be a lucky and fortunate dragon year.
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