Happy New Year! 新年快樂！

[elusivek]

Aaaaannndddd....! Gong Hei Fat Choi! Good Health, Prosperity, and Luck!

Also am being bombarded by these following images on my WhatsApp/Wechat/whatever other messaging platform:

Some clever people will use a mixture of languages. The Mandarin (or, Putonghua) pronunciation of Ox/Cow is something like "Niu" so it sounds like New. So... Happy 牛 Year is like, Happy "New" Year or Happy "Cow" Year, take your pick.

However, I'm not having a good day so far because I didn't wash my hair. I'm a daily-wash-hair type of person. It is only very rare that I would not wash my hair (the day being particularly cold + I'm feeling lazy + my hair actually looks and feels alright). Today is neither. It's not particularly cold, I'm not feeling lazy, and my hair actually feels not clean. Guh! Hate that feeling!

That's because of good old superstition. You don't wash your hair during Chinese New Year. You don't sweep, you don't clean, you don't take out the trash during Chinese New Year. Oh, you don't buy new shoes during the Chinese New Year as well. There are certain foods that you eat (a vegetarian dish called 齋 (tchai) that consists of tofu, tofu skin, some sort of lettuce, a kind of fungus or veggie that looks like black hair (original name 發菜, but it sounds like 發財 "getting rich") and etc...

However, since my Mom herself is from a somewhat mixed cultural background herself, these superstitions are somewhat... twisted to fit all other cultures involved within that family. I can't think of an exact example, but say something like, you're not supposed to wash your hair during the period of Chinese New Year. We've just twisted it in such a way that, it's just on Chinese Year Year Day (Day 1) that we won't wash our hair.

I also did a no-no this morning LOL. I wanted to do some yoga, so before I spread out my yoga mat, I swept the floor because the cat spilled a lot of cat sand around. Yes, I've swept wealth away. Sorry. I don't want to be the richest person on earth, I just want to have enough, just like that cat sand box. There's enough in the box. That's just what I'll need in life. Sorry! So I swept the floor of my room. Big deal. I got an hour of yoga done. I consider that a major win. Yay.

So the plan today is... binge the new Elisa Lam documentary thing on Netflix (friend J said she wanted to watch, and I needed a reason to actually USE my subscription), Chinese New Year Lunch with the family (buffet somewhere), more binging in the afternoon... and rest of the day, apart from the usual dog walk and dinner and etc.

Hope everyone has a great weekend ahead!

Comments

[mores0ul.livejournal.com]

Happy new year! I do love that the 拜年 portion this year is mostly virtual! What background are your parents? We don't really keep much superstitions as we're Christians but the not washing hair one is hard to shake. Not sweeping is easy because I hate it, ha!

[notte0.livejournal.com]

We never needed to do 拜年 for the CNY (within the family) as we aren’t pure Chinese (Mom’s side of the family: Portuguese descent but born in Macau so brought up with Chinese cultural influence. Dad’s just pure Austrian who happened to marry my Mom). So we just meet up for lunch on CNY day 1, and all the 利是 gets exchanged during the lunch.

So Mom’s family’s particular culture has turned 利是 as an “easy out” for presents. Birthday present, can’t think of a good one? Give 利是. Can’t think of a good Christmas present? Give 利是. And the double twist is, for proper Chinese, it’s only given from an elder to a younger. For us? Doesn’t matter. I (the youngest of my generation) can give a lai see to my grandma for all they care. Well, technically a wrong example as my grandma has passed on, but the example stands. LOL.

My head feels so itchy. I usually go to bed by 11pm but tonight I’m gonna wait till midnight so I can wash my hair at 00:01, then dry it and sleep! LOL!

[mores0ul.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of families shorten New Years to one or two days, but all my extended families are overseas so things are bit more relaxed. OMG we do the same thing with lai see as an easy out too. And I was just having this conversation with my Chinese friends, apparently in some families the grown up kids give red envelopes to the elders as a sign of respect?? That was totally news to me! You're obviously just following Confucian teachings of respecting your elders LOL.

[kurikuribebi]

Happy new year :) Is there a reason you dont do any of those things during the new year?

[notte0.livejournal.com]

Same to you :-) Good Health, Prosperity and Luck!

The reasons are simple (but really superstitious):

Hair (in Cantonese, this I’m sure, not so sure about Mandarin) sounds like “prosper”, or I should say, share the same kanji I was wrong! (Hair 頭髮, prosper 發, both read as “faat”), so if you wash your hair, you wash the prosperity away.

Floor sweeping and cleaning much the same. There is actually a day (the 28th day of the last month of the year) specifically just for cleaning (Cantonese: 年廿八，洗邋遢, very rhyming phrase to say cleaning day on the 28th). I suppose you can call that the grand Spring Cleaning LOL. So, you don’t clean during Chinese New Year.

As for buying shoes, again I’m not sure about the Mandarin side, but in Cantonese, the word for shoe 鞋 is read as “haai” and it sounds like the onomatopeia for “sigh”, and since sighing is a sign of failure/non-success/sadness, you do not want to “buy” sadness or unsuccessful during the new year.

[kurikuribebi]

Interesting! I don't think we have any superstitions related to language in Puerto Rico, but that might have changed. Even things we did when I was growing up have changed with younger generations.

We used to throw water out and sing to ward out evil spirits, but that's changed to blaring music and honking horns.

We do wear new clothes to ring in the new year though.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Gong Hei Fat Choi! We don't take out the trash on New Year's Day either. How funny.

And cat boxes are excluded from such things. It's like flushing the toilet - you have to take care of things... like little on the floor.

[notte0.livejournal.com]

Yes, I had that reasoning as my argument in case my Mom starts getting fussy. (She’s at the age where she can get really stubborn and doesn’t listen to reason), luckily there were no fights this time!

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

I fear that's starting to happen to me as well (me as the stubborn one). I'm glad your day wasn't ruined by arguments, though.

[amw.livejournal.com]

新年快樂! I hope this 牛 one have more luck than the 鼠!

[notte0.livejournal.com]

I’m a whole week late, but I only checked my messages today. Belated Happy Birthday!

[mymimikyu.livejournal.com]

My Asian in-laws also seem to pick and choose which superstitions to treat as serious, but I tried to follow a bunch because why not? I'll take some wealth in exchange for not washing my hair on a covid weekend (where I'm not going to see anyone anyways lol).