How To Respectfully Celebrate Chinese New Year: 5 Lucky Activities

Celebrating the New Year is serious business in Chinese culture. Chinese New Year is an opportunity to attract prosperity and ward off bad luck.

It falls right around the start of spring, as the energy in the air is shifting toward new beginnings. In Chinese culture, there are other festivals that mark this special time of year, but the New Year is the biggest and most exciting. 

Traditionally, fireworks and Lion dances are held to celebrate and ward off evil spirits. The Lion dancers practice all year to perform acrobatics and play drums, cymbals, and flutes; it is a magical spectacle. Communities and generations of families will gather for the New Year to celebrate good luck and abundance and look forward to a happy, healthy year.

Chinese Astrology (the Chinese Zodiac) is an esoteric branch of Chinese Medicine. Its guiding principles have to do with the balance of yin and yang energies and the flow of life energy called chi. 

The Chinese zodiac follows Jupiter's orbit around the sun, which takes about 11.8 years to complete. Each year has its own animal and element. Known as the Wu Xing, the five movements, or five phases, the elements (earth, metal, water, wood, and fire) represent the cycle of life and correspond to the seasons (spring, summer, transitional, fall, and winter). There are 12 animal zodiacs and each one is inherently connected to one of these five elements.

You can calculate your Chinese zodiac sign using the year you were born. The time of year you were born is also a factor. For example, if you were born in February, around the start of the new year, you may have very little of the element of that year because you were conceived and developing under the previous zodiac. 

The first day of the new year is thought to represent the way you want your life to look. In Chinese culture, people will often take the day off work to focus on relaxing and only doing things that bring them joy. It is ideal to start the year debt-free and surrounded by new clothes, crispy new money in your pocket, good food, and smiling children.

For New Year's, people traditionally gift a red envelope with crispy new money to small children since childhood joy is pure and unconditional.

Green jade stone is thought to bring balance and good luck. Green is the color of spring and new energy, and it relates to the heart chakra.

Feng shui is the art and science of placement. Your environment can either support your life force (chi) or diminish it. When stuck energy or negative thoughts build up in the home, they can make us feel uneasy and irritable. But there are plenty of ways to improve feng shui and help the chi flow.

One way to do so is by adding gold accents to your home. Gold is the universal symbol of wealth, recognized in all cultures as precious.

You can also bring in a Fortune Frog or a Money Toad: This statue of a three-legged toad with a coin in its mouth is a feng shui charm that is said to bring wealth and protection. You can place the frog behind your computer screen if that is where you do business or at the entrance of your home. Make sure it's facing inward, as you want the money to flow in. Do not place the frog in the bathroom, kitchen, or bedroom. 

Hanging a faceted crystal (which has many sides to reflect light and opportunity and slows down chi) on a red string at the entrance of your home can also help welcome more luck and abundance.