Usher in the pig
MALA ASHOK
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It's that time of the year when you say, "Gung Hey Fat Choi!"
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The year was 1995. I was teaching in a school for adults in Surrey, Canada. We had students of all nationalities. One February morning one of my Chinese students handed me a thin, red envelope, and said, "Gung Hey Fat Choi!"
The expression, loosely translates as, "Happy New Year". However, this was the first time I'd seen what I later learnt was called "Lucky Money". Yvonne Chang explained it was part of the Chinese New Year celebrations to write lucky couplets on red paper and give it to one another, and also wear bright red clothes, and of course give the lucky money.
Lucky money
I tried to turn it down, since as a teacher I could not accept money from a student. However, she assured me it was only a poem (a couplet) about me in Chinese! It had beautiful calligraphy in Chinese with English explanations. That day many of my students strolled over to my desk with similar envelopes, and from them I learned a lot about the Chinese New Year. They were celebrating the advent of the "Year of the Pig". This year is coincidentally another "Year of the Pig". There are 12 years in the cycle of the Chinese calendar. In China it is believed, that Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year. Only 12 came, and he named one year after each of them. He is said to have declared that the people born in each animal's year would have that animal's personality!
Figure out if this holds true by looking at yourselves and your friends! Remember this year is the year of the pig, and next year the year of the rat. The New Year celebrations typically start in January/February on the New Moon Day, and end on the Full Moon Day 15 days later.
So, Gung Hey Fat Choi!
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