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KUNG Hee Fat Choy! If you are of Chinese ancestry, chances are you already feasted on smoked fish, roast pork, noodles and gau in celebration of Chinese New Year, which begins today.
The Chinese celebrate the New Year
with prayers, traditional
foods and family
Snake stamps hot sellers.
By Janine Tully
Star-BulletinThe annual festivity begins with the first new moon of the lunar calendar and ends with the full moon 15 days later. It usually falls between mid-January and mid-February, said Cynthia Ning, associate director of the University of Hawaii Center for Chinese Studies. So Jan. 24 is just about right.
While celebrations in Hawaii usually last two days, in China they last for several days, Ning said. It's during this time, known in China as Spring Festival, when Chinese travel the most, visiting relatives in remote villages. News reports quote the Chinese government saying it expects travelers to take 1.6 billion trips during the holiday week.
"My colleagues in China have all taken off; they have gone home," Ning said. In Hawaii, such distant traveling wouldn't be possible, she said. "It simply wouldn't be practical; we don't get a month off."
Yet despite the demands of modern life and a younger generation that is not so interested in the past, the Chinese in Hawaii have retained many of the traditions, said Ning, including the New Year's Eve family dinner.
Entrees include smoked fish, for good luck; roast pork; noodles, also for good fortune; jai, a monk's vegetarian dish, for cleanliness; and gau, for family unity. A blessing for ancestors is said before dinner. At the end of the meal children serve tea with tong go, a sweet, to the elders."It's a very family-oriented event," said Ning. "You remember those who are not there, whether deceased or not. The elders are served first, you wear new clothes and the younger children get gifts." The gau, a dessert like mochi rice, is wrapped in red paper to represent the color of blood, or life, Ning said.
Joseph Young, a second-generation Chinese, has kept the traditions he grew up with. He and his wife yesterday cleaned house, and created a colorful arrangement made of pomelo, oranges, tangerines and narcissus flowers -- the first flowers to bloom in the spring in China. He then hung good-luck messages around the house, wishing for good health, and success in school for his grandchildren.
For the Chinese, a new year symbolizes the beginning of life, of new things, said Ning.
"It's a time to sweep out the old, pay your debts, sew new clothes, start with a clean slate. You do anything that may enhance your life -- trim your nails, cut your hair. On New Year's Day you don't cook, work or do house chores."
Breaking with tradition, Young didn't have the traditional dinner last night, but will celebrate tonight with his family. His four children and seven grandchildren will come to his home in Aina Haina. The kids will serve tea and put a little tong go in it. In return they will each get a red envelope with money.
"When I was a kid it was 5 or 10 cents, then it was 25 cents, now it's five bucks," he said, laughing.
Yesterday, merchants in Chinatown were busy taking orders from last-minute shoppers who forgot to pick up their pork roast, sweets or gau.
Steve Lau, an employee at Nam Fong, a meat store, said New Year's Eve and the day following New Year's Day are the busiest days of the year.
"The cook worked nonstop from Monday night till this morning (Tuesday)," Lau said.
Judy Ng, who runs Shung Chong Yuein, a sweet shop, was making sure her last customers were taken care of before closing at 5:30 p.m. Ng and her family were going to have dinner at Wo Fat's, nearby. The restaurant lists New Year's Eve as one of its busiest days.
Entree favorites are chicken, fish, dry oyster with fat choy, a seaweed "black like your hair," said restaurant manager Irene Tung, while signaling to an employee to hang a red lantern.
People often think of Chinese New Year as a time of elaborate dinners, firecrackers, dragon dances and red banners and lanterns.
Interesting enough, in Hawaii firecrackers are mostly used on New Year's Eve on Dec. 31.
The most important thing to remember about the Chinese New Year is that "it is a celebration of the rebirth of life," Ning said. "Everything you do is to guarantee the continuation of life."
Kung Hee Fat Choy translates as "wishing you happiness and prosperity."
