CHINESE NEW YEAR 2015 19th February 2015

CHINESE NEW YEAR 2015 19th February… Year of the Yin Wood Goat / Sheep Yi Wei

© Written by Michael Hanna and revised by Daniel Hanna 2015

Are you really prepared for 2015?

Chinese New Year 2015 – Year of the Yin Wood Goat / Sheep Yi Wei

The beginning of Chinese New Year 2015 (according to the lunar calendar) begins on the New Moon which in 2015 will be on the 19th February 2015; this will take place after the Winter Solstice and the event is celebrated by millions of people in every single country and area of the world that you can think of. Chinese New Year is a time of new beginnings and signifies a fresh start for everyone. Chinese New Year is very much a family event where the social side of things is concerned and is a time of reunion and thanksgiving.

The 2015 Xuan Kong annual flying stars full evaluation is detailed here and this year is very important as we have the very inauspicious #3 star enter the centre and specialist cures are needed more than ever. We last had a Yin wood Goat/Sheep Yi Wei year was back in 1955 and this is actually a cycle of 60 years which will be found in a traditional “ten thousand year calendar” 

The Lunar Chinese New Year Day (19th February 2015) is very different from the Solar (Hsia) New Year Day which falls on February 4th 2015.

Although the solar (Hsia) calendar begins the New Year at the beginning of Spring, which will normally fall between the 4th or 5th of February, the lunar (yueh) calendar marks the new year on the second New moon after the winter solstice which is the date where all the celebrations and festivities take place. In 2015, the Lunar Chinese New Year, which also goes by the name of ‘Spring Festival’, falls on 19th February 2015 which is the New Year that is celebrated by all ethnic Chinese and in the last few decades has become more and more celebrated by people from all origins and festivities take place in every single country of the world. The solar New Year (4th February 2015) is not celebrated at all and only used for placing the Annual Feng Shui Cures and Enhancers.

We have had some clients informing us that they have come across websites stating that 2015 is the 4712th Chinese New Year although this is wrong and if you cannot find the reason, here is an answer and interesting fact for you:

The Yellow King’s appointment was held in the spring of 2697 B.C. But they used the winter solstice day as the first day of the year. So the first winter solstice took place on around December 23rd, 2698 B.C. Today’s January 1st means nothing to the Yellow King. If we count that extra eight days in 2698 B.C. for a year, then year 2015 is the 4713th Chinese year.

A crucial part of the build up for Chinese new year is the few weeks leading up to the event as we must all be very well prepared for the New Year as the beginning of the year sets the example for the year’s luck ahead; for example, if you enter the year with debts, you are setting an example for the rest of the year ahead so please be sure to get this bit right if you are able to as i do appreciate it is easier said than done to pay off all your debts.

This rule also applies to anything you have lent out to family and friends and they must be collected before the beginning of the Chinese New Year or else you may find yourself lending for the rest of the year. This goes with most things; generally, the best attitude to take is to start the New Year as you wish to go on which is why drinking alcohol is not encouraged during the Chinese New Year but I will tell you more about this below.

People spend a great deal of time cleaning their homes on the weeks coming up to Chinese New Year and every year, as far back as I can remember, I have had an endless list of tasks that need doing before the New Year as it is extremely important to make sure that the house is thoroughly cleaned and dusted as this ensures that the old stagnant Qi Is swept away so that new, fresh auspicious Qi can enter the home. In my younger years, this was always seen as a gruelling task and I never really appreciated the effect it had on everyone in the home until I moved out and did my first proper Chinese New Year deep clean and I noticed a sudden uplift in so many areas of my life; my energy levels were much higher and from just clearing out all of my unneeded clutter, I changed a lot of circumstances for the better.

The whole house inside and out must be cleaned before New Year’s Day and I personally spend a good two or three days going through every single drawer and move every last piece of furniture and clean underneath and around everything which can be a very daunting process but is well worth it when you sense new Qi coming in. Cobwebs must be cleared out and any old and broken items should be thrown away.

Following cleaning, all brooms, brushes, dusters, dustpans and other cleaning equipment should be put away out of sight because if you were to leave them out, this could threaten the new qi that is arriving and this is something that everyone should aim to avoid. For our home and office it is a bit of a pain as we treat the western New Year the same as the eastern and we end up doing all these rituals twice every year with such a short space in between although this does mean that the clean for Chinese New Year is usually less effort due to deep cleaning before.

This is also a vital time to renew your protective talismans which should be used to scare off evil throughout the home during the year. People from all over the world will do this by decorating their home with auspicious couplets and emblems with the additional aim to summon good fortune. These talismans will be printed on paper in red or with a red background. To the Chinese, the colour red is a life giving colour, associated with summer, the south and the vermilion bird, which is similar to a phoenix (oddly enough symbolic of rebirth in the west too) and represents the fire element.

Red to the Chinese also represents good fortune, fame and riches. You should be very careful when using the colour red inside your home though as I have seen a great deal of homes and businesses that have used very bright reds thinking it will give them good luck where as in traditional Feng Shui, if used in a wrong location it can cause many problems but this is the most potent colour and if used correctly can give good results so a good tip is to keep colours neutral unless you are confident of the elements and their associated colours and usage in Feng Shui.

When you are preparing for the New Year, your house would benefit from being decorated with live, blooming plants as they are a symbol of rebirth and new growth in the household. Flowers such as pussy willow, azalea, water lily or narcissus symbolise wealth and high position in one’s career. If there are no flowers in your house, the result would be a lack of fruit later in the year. It is considered extremely lucky for the whole household if a plant blooms on New Year’s Day as they can expect the year ahead to be full of prosperity so be sure to place lots of plants. Plum blossoms and bamboo are also displayed to symbolise perseverance, reliability and longevity.

Another vital thing for Chinese New year is placing fruit in your home. Oranges and tangerines are two very symbolic fruits associated with the celebration of Chinese New Year  as they are both symbols for abundant happiness. The colour of oranges and tangerines is a good representation of gold and, together with a ‘hung bao’ ang pow, (red packet containing money), they are offered to friends and family as gifts symbolising gold ingots.

About a week before Lunar New Year, traditional families will be very busy preparing the religious ceremony performed with tributes and offerings in honour of Heaven (Tien Shen) and Earth (Ti Tu), and of the various deities of the household together with family ancestors. One of the most well know deities associated with Chinese New Year is the Kitchen God who resides over the stove and is said to keep an eye on the interactions of the household, making an annual report on what the family has done in the past year to the Jade Emperor in Heaven around about a week before Chinese New Year Day. Rites and offerings are made to the Kitchen God (Zhou Khun) on this day with hopes that he will speak well of the deeds of the family.

Traditionally, the big celebration to Chinese New Year is the ‘Reunion Dinner’ which is a very extravagant banquet laid out to mark the onset of the New Year where young and old family members gather for a reunion dinner to symbolise family harmony. Family members try to get home from wherever in the world that they may be before or on New Year’s Eve to celebrate this special occasion in the family home with all of their family members. It is normal for the wives to spend their reunion dinner in the husband’s family home alongside his family.

This reunion dinner is seen as a very grand family banquet that fills the table with all sorts of special, exciting dishes and delicacies artistically named with auspicious symbolic meanings assigned to each dish. The dinner will usually begin with a prayer of tribute and offerings to the ancestors and deities at the family altar. It is a very colourful and lively affair when every light is supposed to be kept on in the house throughout the whole night.

Some of the different dishes that get presented on the dinner table are believed to have superstitious attributes. Some of the dishes are commonly foods like Ginkgo nuts as they represent gold ingots and are said to be full of auspicious luck for fertility.
Black moss seaweed is a beautiful dish and is also a symbolic food of prosperity.
A whole chicken which is a desirable addition to the feast is also a symbolic food of prosperity.

Dried bean curd is placed on the banquet table to symbolise happiness and luck.
Lotus seed is seen as another fertility symbol and signifies having many offspring.
Nian Gao is a traditional sweet steamed glutinous rice pudding, when you eat this dish you will aid growth and abundance.

When you translate bamboo shoots into Chinese, the words sound similar to the Chinese for “hoping that all turns out for the best”. A whole fish with its head and tail intact will represent togetherness throughout the year.

The reunion Dinner

The Reunion Dinner is a very busy event which will commonly have the women conjuring around the kitchen preparing dinner whilst the men either watch TV or (guess what?) play game after game of mah-jong. Mah-jong is an extremely important part of Chinese culture and is played by men and women alike, often in halls solely dedicated to the game.

Mah-jong is linked with gambling with huge sums of money being won and lost by the players. You need an excellent memory in order to memorise which tiles have been laid down and which remain.

Once a certain point in a hand has been passed, you need to pay special attention as if you are the one to put down the tile that enables another player to win that hand, you not only have to pay your own losses on the hand but those of the other two losing players as well. This can mean serious amounts of money throughout the day if memory is not a strong point.

Children will be then be washed and dressed in their new pyjamas and promised the arrival of “Tsai Shen Yeh” (Chai Shen Yeh) (the Wealth God). Whilst they sleep; the children’s parents will slip an ang pow (a red envelope with money) under their pillow signifying a visit from ‘Chai Shen Yeh’ which is a very similar custom to the tooth fairy. It is also very common for children to receive red envelopes from elder family members with the amount that is given being dictated by the closeness of the family relationship and also the age of the child. It is common for the older children to receive more money than younger children and for parents to give more than an aunt or uncle. Someone who has a large family and who has taken a hammering on the mah-jong tables is in for trouble!

At midnight, at the turn of the old and New Year, it is common in traditional places and now all over the world to hear sounds similar to a warzone as everyone lets off fire-crackers which serve to scare away the evil spirits and old qi of the past year and to greet the arrival of the New Year. In the UK, sadly it is illegal to set off fireworks on Chinese New Year without permission from the council although it is accepted on our western New Year. Countries like the UK have left the fireworks out and kept to the traditional dragon dance ceremony where people will dress in a large dragon costume and dance around to loud music with drums which works just as well as firecrackers and is also a great experience for everyone. Performers will hold poles and raise and lower the Dragon. It is common for one man to hold a ‘Pearl of Wisdom’ on a pole and entice the Dragon to follow him to the beat of a drum, as if the dragon was searching for wisdom and knowledge.

In your finest and newest clothes, Chinese New Year’s Day itself starts with the exchange of good wishes amongst the family. Married couples present the young ones, children and unmarried adults alike with a Hung-Bao. In Chinese culture, instead of giving a wrapped up present such as clothing or toys as we do at Christmas in the UK, USA or other countries, it is much more common and in a lot of homes, tradition to give a red envelope containing money. The amount of money contained in the envelope has to be in even numbers. Even numbers are auspicious unless it is a single Chinese i-ching coin on its own. For example, it could be two dollars, ten or twenty dollars. It is amazing how much a person can accumulate in a single day.

If you follow this link you will find an article on red envelopes and how they are used for Chinese New Year; if you follow this link you will find more details https://www.fengshuiweb.co.uk/advice/angpow.htm

You will also find an article on Chinese talismans below this text; this really is a superb article and you must read it; follow this link after you have finished this article. https://www.fengshuiweb.co.uk/advice/talismans.htm

Later in the day, everyone will venture out to visit their different relatives. The visiting rota has its unspoken hierarchy arrangement where the oldest get to sit at home and wait for the younger relatives to visit them to exchange good wishes to each other. This is a very exciting time for the children because nearly every ‘Kung Xee Fa Chai’ (it means Congratulations and May you be Prosperous) we recite, we get an ang pow (red envelope containing money) for it.

The second day of Chinese New Year is named ‘Kai Nien’ meaning “Year Beginning” which starts with a very early morning breakfast. Special dishes with symbolic names will be served. The main dish of this day of celebration is a bowl of long noodles which will result with everyone at the table tossing the noodles as high as possible with their chopsticks. The tossing of noodles is a symbolic activity done to promote longevity. This means that, unless you are unable to do so, you stand up and raise your arms full stretch in the air holding the noodles aloft which can be a messy but fun affair.

Unlike in the west, Chinese New Year is not a time for drinking a lot of alcohol and alcohol is actually not usually consumed over this time as people save space for themselves to drink enormous amounts of Chinese tea. Some people will have a Chinese wine with their meal but, particularly as the emphasis is so much on the family nature of the celebrations, nobody goes over the top.

Two days of eating a great deal and general fun and games with family are quite a lot as the Chinese do not hold back on these occasions and like to celebrate in style. The Chinese relationship with food is close all throughout the year but at no time more so than at New Year. Many dishes have particular significance, especially at this time. Even everyday dishes like fish and turnips have special meanings and none more so than fish balls and meat balls both of which suggest reunion, which is a most important element at this time.

After two days of celebrations and festivities, even the Chinese can have enough and recognise that energy levels need to be restored which brings us on to the third day which is a day of well deserved calm. Traditionally, this is not a day for risks or adventure. The young ones will venture out to see friends but it is generally a quiet day for everyone. Usually, no offices or businesses will be open on this day.

Normal procedures soon return with companies, shops and stores opening up for business as usual on the fourth day. Many businesses will choose a specific day to start business using date selection with the assistance of their Feng Shui Practitioner and initiate the new trading year with a spectacular display of Lion Dance and fire crackers. It is a very noisy and exciting event for both employees and passers-by and is said to bring prosperity to the company.

Greetings and an atmosphere of festivity remain for another eleven days right through to the full moon of the first lunar month when another celebration follows and this celebration is to mark the closing of the Spring Festival which is also a big event. Day 15 is also called the ‘Spring Lantern Festival’ (Yuan Xiao Jie). This wonderfully romantic celebration takes place under a full moon on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month of the year.

On this day, the old and young carry a beautiful, colourful lantern and all gather in a neighbouring public place like a town centre or similar. They all gather around together to admire and appreciate the first full moon of the year (very similar to the Mid Autumn Festival). In China, there are still villages that hold a big Tang Yuan (rice dumplings) cooking and eating session which I would personally love to go to. The dumplings are round and symbolise family unity and completeness. The mid-month Lantern Festival traditionally brings the seasonal passage of the New Year to a conclusion

There will be further
2015 updates on our Feng Shui blog andFacebook so bookmark them now below…

What can I do before the New Year to achieve good luck?

• Ensure that your house, flat, office or any other building is completely clean from top to bottom, to encourage good luck in the coming year. We spend 2-3 days cleaning every single area of our home just before New Year which is quite time consuming but feels great after.

• Do not wash or cut your hair on the first few days of the New Year.  “Hair” is a homophone for the word “fa” meaning “prosperity” in Chinese.  Therefore “cut the hair” or “wash the hair” is perceived as “cut your prosperity” or “wash your prosperity away”. This is something we have done for as long as I can remember.

• You should open all the windows and doors in every single part of the home as this is said to bring in clean, new good luck for the year.
• Do talk about death or anything negative on the first few days of the year and in modern days horror films or any film with negative connotations would never be watched.
• Do not purchase books in the first few days in Chinese New Year.  “Book” is a homophone for the word “shu” meaning “loss” in Chinese.
• Do not cry on the first few days of the New Year or raise your voice to your children or any other member of your family as it is believed this will set the year ahead.

• You should switch on all of the lights in the home inside and out as this is said to attract good luck from outside and if the windows and doors are wide open it is easy for the luck to enter. The bright lights and open windows are also used to scare away evil sprits.

• Many people, especially Chinese will buy a new pair of slippers at New Year, apparently it is said to stop people gossiping about you, In China, face and reputation is very important.

• This is quite normal all around the earth but one thing the Chinese spend a lot of time doing before New Year is bathing and they cover themselves with Pomelo leaves to enhance their health for the year. Pomelo is the largest of citrus trees and they grow as large as a bowling ball and are said to be very healthy to drink and eat.

• The Chinese believe that whatever happens to them on New Years day sets how the year ahead will be for them; this is why they avoid arguments, using knives, driving too far and they love to gamble on New Years day as they hope to create good luck and wealth. You can read more on this below.

Some rules and regulations the Chinese stick to on the Chinese New Year Day.

• Because everybody is in a celebrating mood on Chinese new years, people should not argue or disagree with each other.

• Parents should not punish or discipline the children. Otherwise, they will have more arguments in the New Year.

• Women should refrain from using a knife or scissors in the kitchen. The knife signifies anger and danger in the woman’s life and the scissors predict the woman cutting people out of her life. Women do not prepare or cook meals on this day but eat leftover food from the day before instead.

• It is considered bad luck if you smash a plate, bowl, cup or any other similar kitchen crockery; this brings bad luck regarding finances throughout the year, all smashed crockery should be placed in a round container until the next rubbish collection day.

• It is said that if you sweep up rubbish or throw away rubbish on Chinese New Year Day, you will be sweeping or throwing away the wealth and luck that resides in your home so please do not do any cleaning.

• Do not take a lunchtime nap today as this will encourage laziness throughout the whole year.

• You should not wash yourself on this day which mean do not take a bath, shower or wash your hair on Chinese New Years Day as this will wash away all good luck for you personally.

• Refrain from wearing black or white colours when visiting friends on this day as these colours are associated with funerals and death.

• Do not eat rice or oat porridge for breakfast on this day as rice or oat porridge is associated with the poor eating rice or oat porridge in the past; this symbolises a loss of wealth. A good breakfast would be fruit.

• If somebody that you know or know of has recently passed away, it is not advisable to visit a family member’s house that is connected to the recently deceased as this could bring bad luck in 2015.

• Do not eat any meat during breakfast on this day as many gods that are vegetarians arrive on the Chinese New Year Day festival this day and this could upset them.

• When you wake somebody up on this morning, do not use their name as it is said that this person will be dependant on you all year long to motivate them.

• Refrain from taking medicine if possible on this day that is not essential for your health as this could symbolise weakness and could bring illness to you throughout some point of the year but obviously, necessary medication must still be taken as usual.

• Do not wash any clothes on this day as Chinese New Year Day is the birthday of the god of Water.

• Do not collect any debts on this day as you may find that you will be chasing money for the rest of 2015.

• Do not let anybody take anything out of your pockets, purse, handbag or wallet as this symbolises money loss throughout the year and please be careful when out as pick pockets can also cause problems with this.

• Do not cut your hair or nails on this day as it is believed that you will be bringing pain to your relations.

• Do not buy any shoes as it is considered very unlucky; “shoe” translated in Mandarin means evil and when translated in Cantonese means rough although slippers are fine.

• Keep everything positive and do not talk about anything negative on this day as you will be setting an example for how the rest of your year is to be lived.

• When offering something, do not do so in fours; when “four” is translated in Chinese, it sounds like death. An example would be not to place 4 or 24 – 34 04 worse still 44 pounds/dollars in a red envelope

You can download a checklist of everything that needs to be done, just click here Checklist for Chinese New Year 2015

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and would like to wish you all a very happy, successful and lucky new year in 2015. There are many links below related to the Chinese New Year and traditions.

Are you really prepared for 2015?

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