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STORY
There are plenty of fun facts, quirky traditions and interesting cuisines associatedwith
ChineseNewYear. We’ve got the lowdown on the blindingly red time of the year.
ABCs of Chinese New Year
G
ong
Xi Fa Cai! Ang Pao
Na Lai!
Chinese New
Year is fast approaching
and you’ll soon be see-
ing these greetings plas-
tered across each street,
and heard around each
corner. It’s a time when all things red,
go back in fashion, and your grandma
would not frown at you for having fire
engine red hair.
So what does Chinese New Year
aka
the Lunar New Year, boast apart from its
traditional cuisine? You know Chinese
New Year is upon us when the family
gathering invitations start piling up, and
your waistline starts increasing in number.
It’s a celebration of family and tradi-
tion, and the Chinese do it big! 15 days of
eating, feasting and mingling with long,
lost family members. You’ll finally bump
into that uncle of yours, who is somehow
related through some unexplainable way.
Fifteen days of joyous festivities just
brimming with tradition.
Mythical Beast
There have been many variations on
the start of Chinese New Year. However,
the most popular one involves a little
bit of mysticism. Legend has it that the
auspicious celebrations beganwith a battle
against a mythical beast called the
Nian
,
a ferocious beast which would always
show up on the first day of the New Year,
to gobble up all the children, livestock
and crops.
The villagers were helpless, and so they
devised a plan to protect themselves from
the beast. Each New Year, the villagers
would prepare the most delicious dishes
and place it at their door front, hoping the
Nian
would be too full to eat anything else
but the feast in front of him. The villagers
got a littlemore conniving and used
Nian’s
W o r d s :
L y l a M u r u g a y a h