CHINESE NEW YEAR AT HOME

These ideas will help you bring the festivities of Chinese New Year into your home.

• Use chopsticks as dinner utensils and serve fortune cookies at the end of the meal.
• Create a meal that includes symbolic foods that represent wishes for the upcoming year.
• Hang banners and signs with Chinese good luck wishes from doors and windows.
• Decorate your home with plants that have spiritual meaning in the Chinese culture.
• Make a "money tree," a Chinese household symbol for the New Year celebration, with pine or cypress branches. Decorate the branches with gold coins, flowers and other trinkets.

Prepare the following dishes for your Chinese New Year celebration. According to tradition, the ingredients found in these dishes will speak volumes about your family's wishes for the year to come.

If you're eating...	Your wish is for...
Beef	Strengthening powers
Duck	Happiness
Pork	Wealth
Shrimp	Wealth and abundance
Clams	Profit and good omens
Oysters	Good fortune

READ ABOUT THE CHINESE GOOD LUCK WISHES »

 

If you're eating...	Your wish is for...
Puffed Rice Cakes	A sweet new year
Rice Dumplings	Heavenly blessings
Fried Rice	A lucky new year
Persimmons	All wishes to be fulfilled
Seaweed	A happy new year