Chinese New Year

Even though it's been quite a while since CNY, and some of you may have seen these pics already on our photobucket, I thought I'd blog a bit about it here. I've been a neglectful blogger lately, so I'm trying to make up for lost time!

So, what's there to say about Chinese New Year (or CNY as "those in the know" call it)? In many ways it was a bit anticlimatic, things really slow down during CNY and a lot of people leave HK. They say that during CNY, the world's biggest mass migration takes place, because Chinese from all over the world return home to mainland China to be with family. Even still, there were still some interesting things to see.

These are all over the city during CNY. I think there tangerine trees. They line the streets and people purchase them for their homes. I don't exactly know the cultural significance of this, but I think it has to do with showing that you are prosperous. Prosperity is very important to the Chinese. It's also possible that the word for tangerine rhymes with something that is lucky. That's the case with fish, which they eat a lot during CNY. Words that rhyme or sound like good or bad words is very significant to the Chinese. For example the word for "four", which is "sap" rhymes with the word for death. For that reason buildings don't have a 4th floor, 14th floor, 24th floor, etc...


You see a lot of these as well...the tree with red envelopes, not the cute girl in front of it! Red envelopes (with money inside) are given to single people and children from married people as well as from bosses to employees.



Don't have much to say abou this...the stuff is red, which is a common CNY color


Red lanterns, common to see all year, but more so during CNY


During Christmas and CNY many of the buildings aligning both sides of the harbor are decorated with festive lights, much like houses are decorated during Christmas....cool, huh?


Okay...this isn't CNY related, but we did see it during CNY. Every night at 8pm buildings along the harbor on HK island participate in "A Symphony of Lights"
Basically, a laser show, set to music that is piped into various hotel bars, restaurants and even along the waterfront. It doesn't get any cooler than this! This picture doesn't even do it justice...there's a lot more lasers and other light affects that stretch along the harbor.