Out With the Old, in With the New

• Chinese New Year is celebrated as a time of new beginnings. Traditionally, people clean their homes and get rid of the old things they do not need anymore. They wear new clothes and shoes, especially red clothes, as red is thought to ward off bad luck. People decorate their homes with oval-shaped red paper lanterns and red banners with gold-colored lettering and symbols of luck and prosperity.
  
  

Reunion Dinner

• On the eve of Chinese New Year, it is traditional for families to gather for a celebratory reunion dinner. This does not include, however, married daughters and their families, as they will join the reunion dinner held by their husbands' families. Whole fish, representing prosperity, is traditionally served, as well as pork and whole noodles.
  
  

Red Envelopes

• Chinese New Year is a time for giving auspicious gifts of money. Red-colored paper envelopes, often decorated on the outside with symbols or characters encouraging prosperity and a long life, are given by married couples to single adults, children and employees. They typically contain an even numbered amount in new bills obtained from the bank. Numbers that include an eight (e.g., 8, 18) are considered lucky numbers, while numbers with four (e.g., 4, 44) are considered to bring bad luck and should be avoided.
  
  

Food and Flowers

• To celebrate the Chinese New Year, people buy and eat oranges (representing good health), tangerines (representing having a long life), persimmons (representing happiness) and candy (representing the sweet things in life) from circular trays (representing unity). They buy and eat New Year cakes made from rice called nian gao, which are traditionally circular shaped and marked with the word for prosperity. Nowadays these are also elaborately molded into different shapes like fish or pigs that represent prosperity.
  
  

Dragon Dance

• The dragon dance is a type of lucky performance for Chinese New Year. It is often a part of parades staged throughout the world. The dragon, a Chinese symbol, is typically made of cloth and attached to poles. Dancers work together and coordinate their movements to bring the dragon to "life"; in their care the dragon appears to fly or drift, often to the beat of drums or gongs.