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Chinese ready to usher in Year of the Rooster

Chinese across the world will wave goodbye to the monkey and welcome the reign of the rooster next week as families reunite, temple fairs open and lavish ceremonies are held to herald the Lunar New Year.

In China, the festival kicks off on New Year’s Eve on Tuesday when debts are paid, homes are swept, unfinished business is completed and annual family reunions are held across the world’s most populous nation.

Sumptuous meals, including traditional “long life noodles,” dumplings and fiery white wine, will be consumed as red envelops stuffed with cash are handed to children and massive fireworks are lit to ward off evil spirits from advancing into the coming Year of the Rooster.

“The erratic, but clever monkey, said to be behind rising energy prices and a series of natural disasters that rocked 2004, will give way to the stoic and proud rooster who will bring law, order and military pride to 2005,” Shelly Wu, a California-based astrologist told AFP. “People born in the Year of the Rooster are deep thinkers, capable, and talented. They like to be busy and are devoted beyond their capabilities and are deeply disappointed if they fail,” said Wu, who runs the chineseastrology.com website.

Almost every Chinese person knows what animal sign he or she was born under in a 60-year zodiac cycle that is divided into 12 animals and “five earthly stems” and based on a calendar geared to the phases of the moon.

For those keeping track, the coming Wood Rooster Year will be Year 4702 on the Chinese calendar. China officially jettisoned the calendar in 1911 with the fall of the Qing Dynasty when the country also trashed theories about the Earth being the center of the universe and accepted the Gregorian Christian calendar.

Still, the 12 animal zodaic, which begins with the rat and ends with the pig after going through such animals as tigers, dragons, snakes and goats, remains at the heart of the nation’s most important festival.

Despite the communist government’s distaste for “superstitions”, fortune telling, geomancy, incense burning and auspicious rites in temple fairs remain a mainstay of the 10-day long Lunar New Year holiday. The fairs are a tradition that stretch back at least to the Liao Dynasty (907-1125) with more than a dozen to be held in Beijing alone, where entertainment and traditional snacks, such as sticky sweets and lamb skewers, will be on offer.

Much of the festivities at home are centered around the Kitchen God, or Zaowang, who is said to have invented the cooking fire and is the censor of the Chinese household. Zaowang purportedly heads up to heaven to report on family behavior during the last week of the year and returns to the Earth on the first day of the New Year.

Cooking is banned for several days after he returns and this means several days of food needs to be prepared on New Year’s Eve day. Also, no sharp tools, like scissors or knives, should be used in the home after his return less they cut the good luck that he brings back from heaven.

The family reunions in China see the biggest movement of people on Earth: up to 1.97 billion train, plane, or bus trips are expected to be made during the Lunar New Year travel period from January 25 to February 28. Although festival customs vary widely, the first day of the year is normally spent with immediate family at home, the second day with friends and on the third day, married women are allowed to visit their parents.

A typical New Year’s Eve will find families cluttered around tables eating, drinking and chatting, while the clacking noise of Mah Jong, a form of card game played with porcelain or plastic tiles, competes with the traditional New Year’s Eve festival broadcast by China Central Television. The variety show is arguably China’s most watched and scrutinized television program of the year and goes on throughout the night. It has been broadcast every year since 1984, when China first began to embrace the television. afp

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