How to celebrate Lunar New Year in Australia

It’s little wonder Australians celebrate Lunar  New Year with enthusiasm. Not only is it an excellent excuse to indulge in some of Australia’s favourite social activities – eating, dancing and buying new clothes – it features an almighty fireworks display.

Here are 8 prominent examples followed in Australia:

Food for luck

New Year dish often depends on where they come from and their personal preferences. Most meals served in Australia will likely have one or more of the following:

Fish symbolises surplus for the forthcoming year and is eaten for good luck. Some sticklers say it should be the final dish eaten at a meal and left unfinished to represent a coming surplus, whether that be money, food or health.

Dumplings, which are particularly popular in China’s north, are made to look like silver ingots symbolising money. It’s said the more you eat of the little dough packages containing chopped meat and vegetables, the more money you will receive this year.

Nian gao is a traditional New Year cake made with sticky rice, dates, sugar and lotus leaves. It represents increasing fortune.

Tang yuan, or yuan xiao, are sweet, small balls made from glutinous rice flour that are cooked and served in soup. Their roundness represents family unity and the act of coming together. They are popular delicacies for the Lantern Festival.

New Year’s Eve dinner

In Asia, this is a traditional “reunion meal”, where family generations sometimes travel vast distances to get together and enjoy a banquet. In this way, it’s similar to how families and friends come together for Christmas Day lunch.

Big bang theory

After the big reunion meal, traditional families stay up well beyond midnight to bring in the New Year by either watching or launching fireworks. This is called shou sui and is a way of driving away evil spirits. They say the person who launches the first New Year’s firework receives a special dose of good luck.

Colour me red

Following the triumph at the heart of the Nian legend, red is the colour of happiness and good luck. People across the world decorate their houses and businesses with red scrolls with New Year wishes during the Spring Festival.

Dragon and lion dances

Dragon and lion dances are popular and familiar sights in streets during many Australian Chinese festivals. The mystical animals’ “gestures” are carefully choreographed; they usually include displays of excitement, curiosity, anger and happiness.

Red packets, pockets and envelopes

Known as hong bao in Mandarin and lai see in Cantonese, little red envelopes are filled with money and given by adults or elderly to young children as a symbol of good luck. 

Paper lanterns

After the traditional cleaning, Asians decorate their homes to welcome the New Year. Most decorations are red, and the most popular are hanging lanterns, couplets and paper cuttings stuck on doors to ward off evil and welcome good luck.

Spring cleaning

It’s customary for Asian families to spring clean their homes thoroughly on New Year’s Eve to sweep out the chen (old), removing the previous year’s bad luck.