Growing up in Taiwan, I always looked forward to the month-long celebrations of 新年 (“xin nian” or New Year) when family and friends visited and gathered at different houses to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Every morning, we put on a different red colored outfit and rehearsed our 吉祥話 (“ji xiang hua” or good fortune sayings). When we entered people’s homes, the first things to say were “恭喜恭喜” (“gong xi gong xi” or congratulations) and “新年快樂” (“xin nian kuai le” or Happy New Year), and adults would hand out those aromatic 紅包 (“hong bao” or red envelopes) packed with a lucky dollar amount, e.g., 800 NT. My family always earned more than we handed out because we had 4 kids and most other families only had 2 kids. Big families FTW.

On the walls, we would stick red 春 (“chun” or Spring) character cutouts upside down to indicate the arrival of Spring, since “upside down” was a homonym to “arrive” in Mandarin. 福 (“fu” or fortune) is another Chinese character often seen on walls.

There were plenty of lucky Lunar New Year snacks like watermelon seeds (represents a bountiful year), oranges (represents luck), 旺旺 rice crackers (represents good luck), sweet confections (represents a pleasant New Year), and many more.

My favorite part of the festivities is when we played “the dice game” with my grandmother, the matriarch of my family aka the dealer of the game aka the House that always wins. After dinner, everyone takes out all the red envelope money they earned so far and gathers around a big empty bowl. Grandma starts first, throwing three dice into the bowl as everyone yells “1, 2, 3”. The game is essentially the dice form of the card game “War”, biggest value wins. A roll of 1-2-3 is the lowest and 4-5-6 is the highest. Everything in between is a nail-biting fight against grandma. Our boisterous crew would be shouting numbers out loud all night long, hoping to roll a 6 or a 4-5-6. But, the rules were easy, and grandma always won.

Good food, good times – that is how my family celebrated Lunar New Year. Here are some ways other Taiwanese people celebrate Lunar New Year.

How does your family celebrate?

Best,
Jacqui Wu
TACL President