For me and my family, Chinese New Year has always been special. A time of celebration and superstitious traditions, it’s often the one time of year that the whole family is together, sitting around one dinner table and unified as one. As a child, what my cousins and I cared about most was the meal. An eight course banquet at a nice restaurant where we’d get to indulge in steamed fish and seafood, stewed beef, and see yao gai, or “soy sauce chicken” for my non-cantonese speakers. The abundance of this meal symbolizes prosperity, unity and luck for the incoming new year; the one time of year that a family of 13 members can splurge and celebrate in hopes of good fortune to come.
Aside from the decadent meal shared amongst families, the holiday is littered with other traditions designed to bring good luck. Every family is different, and brings focus and attention to different aspects of traditional celebration. The days before the new year you will often find Chinese families sweeping their homes, their streets and cleaning dust from every corner of every bookshelf. This act of cleaning symbolizes the desire to not carry any bad luck from the previous year onward. However, you are strictly forbidden from doing any cleaning of your home or your body and hair on the first day of the New Year as no one wants to “wash away” the luck brought from the celebrations. This focus on cleanliness surrounding the idea of luck often confused me as a child. How is cleaning your house but not cleaning your body going to bring you new money and riches in the new year? It wasn’t until I was older and my Cantonese improved that I realized “Kung Hei Fat Choi”, a common new year greeting, did not mean “Happy New Year” but instead roughly translated to “Happiness and Prosperity”.
While there are numerous other ways in my culture to bring happiness, riches and good fortune, the most important part of this time of year is about being with family. Whether you are born into a Chinese family or are celebrating with a chosen family, it is a time to reflect on the year that has passed and look forward to even bigger and better things in the year to come. As we close out the year of the Snake, a year of wisdom, intuition and transformation, I welcome, alongside the South High ASA the year of the Horse in 2026. May this year bring forth power, energy and freedom to everyone in our community. Kung Hei Fat Choi!
