Chinese New Year of the Pig
Created Saturday, 19th January 2019, 22:26 by Whykay
We will be entering the year 4716, which is Chinese New Year of the Earth Pig. It's interesting to see how this is calculated, thanks to this website for some further explanations (which is still kind of confusing but interesting nonetheless).
Chinese New Year is on Tuesday, 5 February this year.
For those just interested in seeing what's happening in Dublin, the Dublin Chinese New Year Festival will be the largest this year with over 90 events. Their programme is out, and you can find out more on what's on via dublinchinesenewyear.com. It's from 1st to 17th Feb, lots of food, activities, performances, and more!
And Cork is also hosting a Chinese New Year Festival full of events, you can check out corkchinesenewyear.com for more information.
I'm planning to head home on CNY eve, which is on Feb 4th, this is the big reunion dinner. And also for the kiddies, giving of Lai Sees (or Hung Bao) which are small red envelopes with cash, "a form of blessings and to suppress the aging and challenges associated with the coming year, to junior members of the family, mostly children and teenagers." This only applies to people who are married. So *yay*, use to be my favourite when I was a kid. 😉Apparently you give lai sees on the 1st day of CNY according to our good ole information provide that is wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year#New_Year's_Eve
All in all, I'm looking forward to the yummy CNY food. My brother's in-laws are over from China and their style of food is different to our Cantonese food, so it will be interesting to see what kind of fares they prepare and eat for dinner.
Besides that, I'm looking forward to some of the events happening around Dublin. If anyone is doing anything special or have pics or vids, please share with us in the comments or via twitter, we are @IrishChinese.
For anyone needing Cantonese phrases to wish someone a Happy New Year, here's some of the ones I would use (you can find more here):
- 恭喜發財
gung1 hei2 faat3 coi4
May the New Year bring you prosperity! - 龍馬精神
lung4 maa5 zing1 san4
Spirit of dragon and horse - 萬事如意
maan6 si6 jyu4 ji3
10,000 things according to your will - 心想事成
sam1 soeng2 si6 sing4
Accomplish that in your heart - 大吉大利
daai6 gat1 daai6 lei6
Much luck and much prosperity - 年年有餘
nin4 nin4 jau5 jyu4
Every year have bounty in excess - 生意興隆 (good one for businesses)
saang1 ji3 hing1 lung4
Let the business be popular and prosperous - 學業進步 (to students)
hok6 yip6 jeun3 bou6
Making progress in educational studies - 快高長大 (to kids)
faai3 gou1 zoeng2 daai6
Quickly grow taller and become bigger
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