The Household COO

Okay, this post is a bit late since we’re probably closer to Chinese New Year 2007 now than we are to the one that just passed. I was kind of busy at the time so I’ve been procrastinating putting up these photos until now…

For a traditional Taoist family, you have to have a closing ceremony for the family business. Like most of the other festivals on this blog, it involves fairly similar events - a big cook up with loads of food, the burning of shiny paper and incense sticks at the altar. Even the types of food served are fairly similar…

There are two altars at the factory - one inside and one outside. I’m not really sure what the difference is, but I think each altar represents different deities. Here’s a shot taken of the inner altar:

A close up of the food… You might notice the predominant theme of the colours red and pink. Red is a colour often used in festivities because it represents good things - happiness, prosperity and luck. Pink is also used because of its closeness to the colour red and is an accepted replacement where red is not available.

Personally, I’ve never been terribly fond of the pink and red combination because I feel they clash but it makes the older generation happy. Some good tips if you want to make an elderly Chinese person happy - just wear red, or any of its derivatives. Alternatively, if red’s not your colour, just make sure you’re not wearing black or they’ll think you’re planning their funeral.

These are special incense sticks for the inner altar. The normal ones are usually the thickness of a toothpick. I’ve been told that when the incense is for a deity, you have to give three sticks, but for a dead relative, you only use one.

For the superstitious, the numbers on the middle incense stick can be used as lucky numbers for a lottery. Locally, we have lotteries that require the selection of four numbers so these numbers are recorded for the evening’s lottery draw. I’m not sure if that’s part of the tradition or just a gambler’s desire to get lucky…

Below is a shot of the outer altar with the food that everyone will be feasting on later. I presume it is laid out before the deity for some sort of blessing, or is it a sacrifice? Either way, it stays there until the shiny bits of paper are all burnt before we start feasting.

Some closer shots of the food… The yellow rice is often served during Chinese New Year and it is believed that eating it brings prosperity. The colour yellow is often linked with gold and wealth, hence it is the next most favoured colour after red. My MIL believes that if you attend a New Year party and you see a dish of this rice, you should always take a little serve of it.

More food for the party later on…

Check this out… this deity drinks guinness and smokes, too!

The events are concluded with the usual bonfire of burning shiny bits of paper that represent a monetary sacrifice to the deities.

After which, everybody gets to tuck into a food fest and the factory is officially closed for the New Year.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 14th, 2006 at 8:32 am and is filed under Chinese New Year, Traditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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