Celebrating Lunar New Year: A Teochew perspective

Lunar New Year or Spring Festival marks the beginning of the new year based on the lunisolar calendar. The 15-day holiday kicks off this year on Saturday 10 February with the Year of the Dragon.

Sam Parry is an investor in BGF’s London Quoted team. Here, he explains his experiences of Lunar New Year growing up Singaporean-British.

The Lunar New Year has always been an important celebration for me. My family are Teochew, originally from the Chaozhou province in China, although they emigrated to Singapore many generations ago. Singapore is a multicultural hub within the Chinese diaspora, so like with many holidays, traditions vary across households.

What is Lunar New Year?

Lunar New Year marks the first new moon in the lunisolar calendar, it’s based on the movement of the moon and sun, typically falling between January and February. It’s a time for families to reunite and honour their ancestors, while praying for luck, wellbeing and health for the year ahead.

It is celebrated by more than 2 billion people across the globe — a quarter of the world’s population. Countries that have public holidays during Lunar New Year include China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, North Korea, Singapore and Brunei.

What are typical Teochew traditions on Lunar New Year?

Sung ni kaui lag means Happy New Year in Teochew. Celebrations will begin the night before the New Year with the ‘reunion dinner’ which is considered the most important meal of the year and family members are expected to make every effort to be present.

 New clothes are worn to symbolise a new start to the year and married couples gift hangbao  — red envelopes containing cash — to children and single adults.

 When visiting someone’s home during the festive period, it is custom to gift the head of the household with pairs of oranges. Even numbers are considered lucky and to bestow a blessing of happiness and prosperity upon the recipient.

 Due to the cold climate in Chaozhou, Teochew reunion dinner is usually ‘steamboat’ (hotpot) where ingredients and dipping sauces are arranged around a simmering pot of broth in which the food is cooked as the family catches-up on the year just passed.

 Other dishes are served to symbolise blessings for the forthcoming year and dishes are often named using a play-on-words. For example, leeks are commonly found in Teochew households, as the word Leek is sng which has the same pronunciation as ‘count’, it is believed that by eating leeks, families will have a lot of wealth to count in the year ahead. Similarly, fish features in many meals, the Chinese word surplus is a homophone for fish and the expression ‘May you have ample surplus/abundance’ can be interpreted as ‘may you have an abundance of fish’.

What is the Year of the Dragon?

Each year has a zodiac sign, 2024 marks the Year of the Dragon which symbolises power, nobility, honour, luck, and success. People born in Dragon years usually possess natural courage, tenacity, and intelligence. Those born in a Dragon year are considered to make successful entrepreneurs, so we’ll be keeping our eyes out for future CEOs!

Other Years of the Dragon include 2036, 2024, 2012, 2000, 1988, 1976, 1964, 1952.

There are many ways to participate in the Lunar New Year celebrations in London, which has the largest events outside Asia, and in the rest of the UK and Ireland.

If you are celebrating Lunar New Year best wishes from everyone at BGF!