By Miyoko Ishigami, KUNA
Hong Kong : Chinese around the globe on Thursday celebrate the Lunar New Year with family members, relatives and friends, the biggest and the most important festival in the Chinese communities.
In Hong Kong, local people exchange greetings of “kung hei fat choi” in Cantonese, which literally means “congratulations and increase in wealth.” The celebration officially lasts three days here, but many offices and shops shut down for several days to one week.
According to the Immigration Department, about 8.4 million people are expected to travel in and out of this city with a population of 6.9 million during the holiday, up 9.9 percent on last year.
However, people like Eleanor Chung, a lawyer, plans her overseas trip in another holiday to avoid being caught up in an annual mass exodus. “I have worked so hard in the past several months, so, prefer to spend this family-oriented holiday in Hong Kong with my British husband and relatives. It is the worst time to travel, I think,” Chung said.
On this occasion, people decorate their homes with new posters saying Chinese idioms and couplets. They also paste a red paper with an upside-down Chinese character of “happiness” on the front door. The pronunciation of “dao” (upside-down) in Chinese is the same as “arrives,” thus, it symbolizes the arrival of happiness.
Children and junior employees here are given red packets, or “lai see,” from married couples and senior colleagues, which contain lucky money, at least a HKD 20 (USD 2.6) note.
According to the city’s Monetary Authority, 300 to 400 million pieces of banknotes, including more than 200 million pieces of new notes are issued every year to meet the demand during the Chinese New Year in Hong Kong, where local households dispose a total of 70 million envelopes for lai see.
Thursday is also the beginning of the Year of the Rat. In the Chinese Zodiac, the Rat is the first lucky animal in its 12-year zodiac cycle. According to Chinese legends, the Emperor decided to hold a race among all the animals and to honor the first 12 animals by naming the years after them in the order arrived. During the race, the ox was in the lead, but the smart rat jumped on his back, and when the ox neared the goal, the rat leaped from behind his ear and crossed the finish line first. Therefore, the cycle of the Chinese Zodiac starts with rat, followed by ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig in order.