Chinese New Year just ended a few days ago and we’ve transitioned from the year of the dog to the year of the pig. Now commonly known as Spring Fest, the celebration lasted from the 4th of February to the 10th and I’ve been off school since the 2nd. During my break, I attended a sparkling lantern festival and watched shining LED lanterns float down the buildings outside my window. One of the most popular social networks and virtual wallet apps in China, Wechat, even temporarily allowed users to send hongbao, or red envelopes to each other.
The Lantern Festival
We began our night around sunset beside water fountains and a small market selling ice cream, small trinkets, waffles, and more. Then we made our way toward the main attraction. This stunning display boasted thousands of lights all beautifully designed, including the flowers shown above as well as a huge pig, a land of candy, a winter wonderland, dragons, masks, a temple, a wishing wall, camels, and so much more. Dancers in dragon costumes occupied a stage to the beat of drums. We wandered through the displays for quite a while (there were A Lot of lights). My favorite was the candy, obviously 😂😂😂. A food market was also set up outside the lantern walk. Filled with spicy squid and many other foods I couldn’t personally identify, I was only adventurous enough to buy a sausage on a stick.
Hongbao
Commonly known to foreigners as “red envelopes”, hongbao are often exchanged by relatives, colleagues, and family friends and contain some amount of money. The color red symbolizes happiness, energy, and luck. According to legend, the monster “Sui” would come on the night of New Year’s Eve and scare the children so much that they would eventually end up with a mental problem. The parents prayed that their children would be safe and began placing eight coins threaded with a red ribbon under their children’s pillows at night. This was later replaced with money and the thread became an envelope.
But, now people just use Wechat 😂😂😂.
8 coins connected with red thread 
Kumquat Trees
Another popular New Year item is the Kumquat trees you may see around China. These are evergreen trees covered in mandarin oranges. Many of the trees during Chinese New Year are groomed into cylinders and often surrounded by flowers. They’re decorated with empty hongbao envelopes. The Chinese words for “orange” and “tangerine” sound similar to the words for “luck” and “wealth”. You’ll see them all around China, outside shops and apartment buildings to welcome the new year.
Pig painting and hongbao images – credit to the original owners
Way Out Wanderer 