Thursday, April 14, 2011

Flowers For Eastern New Year Decorations

By John Chan


Find out how the Chinese people decorate their homes and streets with specially crafted Chinese New Year decorations.

The Chinese New Year is one of the most special days on the lunar calendar. You can see Chinese people decorating their homes with so many different of Chinese New Year handicrafts specially created for this unique event. From indoors to outdoors on the city streets, China seems to be glittering in color throughout the season.

From pretty flowers to platters of food there is a wide variety of Chinese New Year decoration items that are reserved for the occasion. There are certain decoration items that have become symbols for this time of the year. The array of decoration items is wide and colorful.

Natural blossoms are a very important part of the Chinese New Year decorations. Moreover, as a matter of fact, their love for the nature is pretty evident. At this time of the year, local households are decorated with different flowers and plants that represent growth and prosperity for the coming year.

For decorating purposes, the most commonly used plants and flowers are the plum blossoms at such times. This is because, they just start to blossom during this season and they are arranged beautifully together with bamboo and pine springs. This represents a special closeness between families and friends around this time.

The two symbolic values the plum blossoms are supposed to represent are reliability and tenacity. The compatibility factor is represented by the bamboo due to its flexible nature and the evergreen nature of pine is a traditional mark of eternity. Other flowers used also are azalea, water lily, narcissus, and peony.

Even particular kinds of fruits play an eminent role in the New Year decoration symbols and every household in China needs to have it. Oranges and tangerines are the first priority in the list and generally brought as presents by visiting friends. To maintain happiness and long relationship tangerines are usually intended to symbolize such emotions.

The best portionof the Chinese New Year is perhaps the candy tray; at least this is correct as far as the kids are concerned. The candy tray is a specially designed decoration item for this time of the year. This sweet treat is also known as the tray of togetherness and consists of an interesting variety of some of the most delicious candies.

This candy tray also has another ritual following it up where an adult takes a candy and replaces it by keeping a red envelope in the tray that contains of some kind of good luck symbol for the peopleoffering it. Generally the candy tray consists of candied melon of different variety like lychee nut, peanuts, coconut, and cumquat etc. all of which have special meanings.

A huge proportion of the New Year decorations are centered around the particular animal which represents the year. This has been the tradition for many years and is still practiced on New Years Day today.




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