Early this Friday, millions of Chinese will welcome the new year. A celebration that lasts for days and will open its doors to its most precious zodiac animal, the dragon, among multiple traditions and rituals to attract good luck.

Protocol of activities for the Chinese New Year

Onda Cero’s correspondent in China, Isabel Fueyo, explains that it is believed that what is done during the first days of the Chinese New Year could completely write one’s luck for their next 365. So there really is a protocol of activities that must be taken into account to avoid ruining in one fell swoop the good intentions that the year of the dragon could leave us.

For example, one should not cut or wash one’s hair. At least the first day of the year. In Cantonese, hair is pronounced faat, a sound that sounds similar to the expression of getting rich, so if you wash it or cut it you mean that you are eliminating your hopes of making a fortune in the coming months.

As a counterpoint, this week it is almost impossible to find space in a hair salon. We will not start the year with black clothes either, especially if we are going to visit friends, since they remember people who have died and funerals.

To continue avoiding bad luck, we should not buy shoes these daysagain, the sound of this word in Chinese resembles that of a sigh and thus it is interpreted that these purchases will only bring you sighs of disappointment during the next year.

Nor should we go through the bookstores, because the word book is pronounced the same as “lose” and should be banished from any conversation these days, especially when one of the family entertainments of these celebrations are board games like mahjong and where Of course, nobody wants to lose.

And the last of the well-known activities that are on this black list is that of cleaning or sweeping the house, on the first day of the year, if we do it, we would take with us the fortune that the change of year always leaves on our homes.

Activities or rituals that we should follow

Onda Cero’s correspondent in China explains that the color red is a symbol of good luck in China and must be used for everything, in clothing, home decoration, and street decoration. And also mandarins, one of the quintessential symbols of these celebrations. In Cantonese, tangerine is homophonous with the word “gold” and “luck, so you can imagine what it implies.

And what we cannot ignore are the Lai seees, those red envelopes that are filled with bills that look like they have just come off the press and that are given to family members, singles and service personnel, with the aim of distributing the fortune to Around us.