Chinese New Year Customs (pt 2): A Week Before New Year

Summary

• A week before New Year, the Chinese people have a customs of bribing the Kitchen God with sweet foods before he goes back to heaven.
• People believe the Kitchen God goes back to heaven every year to give a report about the family deeds to the Jade Emperor.
• In Chinese New Year customs, the people cannot sweep or clean the house on the New Year day, so they use the week before to do so.
• When sweeping, you will only sweep inward and not out the front door (because you do not want luck to go out the front door). After you finish sweeping, you can take the trash out from the back door.
• Each household will use this time to clean its family tombstone and altar.
• Before New Year, you need to be free of debt. Also, nothing should be lend or borrow at this time.
• If you are a lender, you should not ask people to pay back the money on New Year, but wait until the New Year is over.
• Red is the color for decoration.
• To drive away the evil spirit, there will be a line of poem (calligraphy) written on a red paper and tape to each side of the door or gate. Red lanterns will also be hanged for the same reason.
• People will write the word "Spring" upside down on the calligraphy. They believe that by doing so will help the luck stay inside the house.
• On each wall, there will be pictures of children playing and God of Fortune.
• The children on these drawing will be fat. In China's culture, fat means healthy and luck.

You should go clean your room...

Chinese New Year custom is practically endless. To make it easy for you and me, I will only concentrate on a couple of customs that are widely used in China. Let's start.

A week before New Year the Kitchen God will go back to heaven. When he goes back to heaven, he will report back to the Jade Emperor all the things that happened in a household.

Most families do not want the Kitchen God to report all the bad deeds that the family does over the year.

What the family does is bride the Kitchen God with sweet food or treat. By the time he goes up see the Jade Emperor, he will only report about the good deeds and leave bad out.

(Sign) Bribing is everywhere, I am just kidding. So if you have a sweet tooth, this is the best time for you to enjoy.

People use this week time to clean and sweep the house. It is prohibited to sweep the house on the New Year days. According to Chinese New Year customs, sweeping the house on New Year means you will sweep out all the good luck.

Also, during this time, the Chinese natives will go out to clean up their family tombstone and altar at the local temple as well.

Before stepping into a new year, everybody needs to be free of debt. All the family debt need to be taking care of at this time. A simple explanation is that you should not bring the old year problem on to the next. It is consider being bad luck.

Also, you should not lend anyone money or anything during New Year. According the Chinese New Year customs, when you let people lend the first couple days of the year, that will be your fate for the rest of the year. However, if you are a banker, by all mean do so.

There is one tricky part. As a lender, you may not ask people to pay back their debt during this time; however, it is the borrower responsibility to return the money. You should not ask for a payment at this time (especially on the 1st New Year); because you may get beat up. Do not say, I didn't warn you.

House decoration...

House decoration is an art by itself. Everywhere will be decorated in red. From the outside looking in, the first thing you will notice is the line of poem calligraphy on each side of the door and gate.

The meaning of these lines is to wish everyone a happy New Year, and also to scares away the evil spirit. Red lanterns will be hanged around the house for the same reason.

The calligraphy will be on red paper. When you look closely, you will notice the word "Spring" is written upside down. Writing of the word "Spring" upside down, people believe that luck will be keep inside the house and not fly out.

As you step into house, on each wall there will be pictures of children playing and God of Fortune. The children on these drawings will be fat. In China's culture, fat means healthy and luck.

Thank you for joining me today. Please check back for future updated. From where I am and wherever you are, have a warm holiday and good luck, everybody.

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