Big Sweep
"A great fortune depends
on luck; a small one on diligence"
Good fortune favors a clean house, so the family welcomes the Spring Festival with a complete spring-cleaning, a big sweep to do away with all misfortune. All sweeping is done by New Year's Eva.
Big Money
The shrewd Chinese mind thinks: "If a little money does not go out, great money will not come in."
So people slave for money for a whole year to lavish it upon the New Year celebrations
¡Ðand for good reason. With such a rousing welcome for the New Year, they invoke the God of Prosperity to usher in a prosperous New Year.
Everybody's
Birthday
If you are Chinese, you have an additional birthday: the seventh
day of the new year. People are exhorted to eat uncooked lettuce and raw fish, especially
the crap, sold at exorbitant prices on this occasion. The reason: the Chinese word for
fresh or raw (
Mark of the
Fu (Luck)
Today, people who hope for an extra bit of luck display
the Chinese character fu on the wall or the door. This character is diliberately
placed upside down because fu dao(
The Kitchen
God
The Kitchen God is the most important of the domestic
deities. He receives offerings twice a month and a special feast of honey at the end of
the year, on the twenty-third or twenty-fourth day of the twelfth moon. A portrait or a
slip of red paper with the necessary characters represents him. He appears before the
heavenly Jade Emperor to present his annual report on the behavior of members of the
household. Some people sweeten his mouth with honey to ensure that his words will be sweet
and flattering.
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