Lunar New Year Festivities

"Gong Xi Fa Cai" I remember learning from my first-grade teacher, Jeanette Wei. The lunar new year (known as Chinese New Year here) starts on Jan. 22 this year. Much to my delight, it is the year of the rabbit as I've loved and collected rabbits since I was young, even though my birth year is the monkey. Everything is getting decorated to the nines in Penang for the festivities. What I did not realize is that the festival lasts for fifteen days and each day has a meaning or special activity which varies by legend or region. For example, some say the first day is for family and feasting and the tenth day is for the Earth Mother and the fifteenth day is the lantern festival. More information on these customs can be found here: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/02/11/15-days-lunar-new-year

The big Buddhist temple Kek Lok Si had fireworks and there are thousands of lit-up lanterns on display each night for a month.

The old town of Georgetown is all decked out with lanterns as well. There will be a big festival on Jan. 28 with music and drumming and dragon dances. I will post some photos after attending later this week. We will also attend a large feast on Jan. 31 called Lo Hei at a local restaurant where the food is tossed in the air. I will edit this post after that.

All the stores and malls have decorations and gift packages.

There are lots of lantern shops!

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The tradition is to give red envelopes or "ang pow" with money, mandarin oranges, and little cookies in jars:

I was instructed on how to make lanterns out of the red envelopes:

Our apartment complex has many decorations as well:

And even my Zumba class got into the action: