Chinese New Year Traditions

For Chinese and other Asians around the world, Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday observed. Chinese New Year symbolizes the first lunar New Year month and this year is 4,712 in Chinese calendar years. Chinese New Year is always a full 15 day celebration that starts with the beginning of a new full moon.

Common festivities include parades, dinners, reunions, gift exchanges, food festivals, dragons, and more! Common rituals include cleaning your home and putting up decorations such as flowers and money trees.  Other essentials include wearing the color red, putting food in front of the door and for bad spirits to stay away.

Before Chinese New Year arrives, the following items are recommended to be bought; Traditional foods like dumplings, Yuanxiao, and Laba Zhou are common. New red envelopes, and new clothes are custom and for women a qipao.  Most Chinese will go to temple to worship ancestors and welcome the New Year. Families bring fruit, dates, incense, and money to offer the spirits. Red envelopes, known as hongbao, are given to unmarried adults and kids.

The fifteen day celebration is broken up into special days for worshiping, socializing, visiting relatives, and honoring gods. Chinese New Year in 2014 is the year of the green wood horse. People born in this year are cheerful, hard-working but very impatient. They are also independent, popular, and intelligent. 

This year at Wonderful Restaurant we will be having specials all weekend long. Come in and host your family dinner with us! We have a wide selection of Taiwanese favorites such as stinky tofu, Newport Style lobster, hot pots, and `smoked duck.