Happy Chinese New Year

Today is Chinese New Year, which celebrates the beginning of the Year of the Dog. If you were born in 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, this is your year!

Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. It is celebrated as a family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving. The celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and the family ancestors.

Here are some interesting and telling characteristics of people born under the sign of the Dog.

• Dog individuals are the most humanitarian. Fiercely loyal to those they love, Dogs are ever ready to jump to the defense of any member of their family or friends who is being attacked by either word or deed.
• Born with an innate sense of decency and a need for equalibrium in a chaotic world, Dogs strongly denounce injustice and wrongdoing, generously giving useful and effective advice to those around them.
• The Dog makes a faithful, honest and courageous friend, and has a deep sense of justice. These people tend to be both magnanimous and prosperous, yet they can also be dogged, guarded, and defensive. Because they genuinely feel they know best, they can sometimes appear bossy.
• Frequently cynical, he is feared for his sharp tongue and his acid and disagreeable remarks. He gives the impression of looking systematically for faults in everything he touches. This is because he is the world's biggest pessimist and expects nothing out of life. He prefers to live an impeccable life, a life filled with principles and dignity, always willing to be a crusader for a noble ideology.
• Of all the animals in the Chinese Zodiac, Dogs are the least materialistic for they are unselfish individuals who care more about people than they do about money or success. It doesn't worry them to be without the material comforts. Even if they are in the money, their tastes are simple enough.
• The loyal Dog makes a splendid captain of industry, a priest, or an educator. Whatever his career, it will have in him a spokesman whose ideas will be profound and often original.
  
• Though Dogs have a reputation for not easily entrusting their affections, when they do, those friendships are for life.
• Romantically, Dogs gives the impression of being cold fish but this appearance is misleading; it's just that they're anxious and doubt their own feelings as they do those of others
• In love, the most salient characteristic of Dogs is their loyalty.

So what are some of the traditions and customs?

• Shooting off firecrackers on New Year's Eve is the Chinese way of sending out the old year and welcoming in the New Year. On the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, every door in the house, and even windows, have to be open to allow the old year to go out.
• The entire house should be cleaned before New Year's Day.On New Year's Eve, all brooms, brushes, dusters, dust pans and other cleaning equipment are put away. Sweeping or dusting should not be done on New Year's Day for fear that good fortune will be swept away.
• All debts had to paid by this time. Nothing should be lent on this day, as anyone who does so will be lending all the year. Back when tinder and flint were used, no one would lend them on this day or give a light to others.
• Everyone should refrain from using foul language and bad or unlucky words. Negative terms and the word "four" (Ssu), which sounds like the word for death, are not to be uttered. Death and dying are never mentioned and ghost stories are totally taboo. References to the past year are also avoided as everything should be turned toward the New Year and a new beginning.
• If you cry on New Year's day, you will cry all through the year. Therefore, children are tolerated and are not spanked, even though they are mischievous.

• The first person one meets and the first words heard are significant as to what the fortunes would be for the entire year.
• It is considered unlucky to greet anyone in their bedroom so that is why everyone, even the sick, should get dressed and sit in the living room.
• Do not use knives or scissors on New Year's Day as this may cut off fortune.
• While many Chinese people today may not believe in these do's and don'ts, these traditions and customs are still practiced. These traditions and customs are kept because most families realize that it is these very traditions, whether believed or not, that provide continuity with the past and provide the family with an identity.
  

May this year bring you prosperity and happiness. Happy New Year