Jack Blog
February 26th, 2018 By Liz Ha
Growing up, Lunar New Year was a huge deal for my family. We would prepare weeks in advance, decorating the house in red and gold and making daily trips to the Vietnamese market to be sure we had all our essentials for the day of. Contrary to popular belief, Lunar New Year is not just a Chinese holiday and is widely celebrated in several Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Korea and Singapore.
This is a time when family and friends come together and celebrate a year filled with fortune and prosperity. Lunar New Year is all about maximizing your luck! Because of that, I wanted to share some luck-boosting traditions with the Boston office. Some of which include:
- Wear Red and Gold.
Red and gold are lucky colors, often worn during the New Year and special ceremonies, including weddings and births. - Spring-ish Cleaning.
Cleaning represents a wish to bid farewell to the old year, and welcome in a new year of good fortune. Sweeping and dusting is avoided on New Year’s Day, for fear that good fortune will be swept away. - Pay off Your Debts.
Start the year off with no (avoidable) debt to leave room for all that good fortune coming your way. - Respect Your Ancestors.
Leave out food and fruit for your ancestors so they can bless you with all their spiritual juju. - EAT THAT GOOD GOOD FOOD.
Eat noodles for happiness and longevity, dumplings/spring rolls for wealth and oranges/tangerines for health and fullness. Most importantly, eating together will bring you good company for the next year so be sure to spend time with the people you care about most!
On February 16, we celebrated the new year with catered Asian food, an origami/game station, and of course wishing one another a luck-filled year. Happy New Year!
