|
Home
Fake fire crackers
Sogo HK 2008 'rat' decoration
Traditional Pig papercut
CNY cards on sale
papercut
Giant Autumn Lantern
Moon goddes lantern
All photographs belong to Cats Creations - contact us if you wish to use them.
|
Cat's Chinese New Year Resource photos & Info Don't take this all as truth, its bits I picked up living here or read in Wikipedia and I may be wrong! Kung hei fat choi "Congratulations and be prosperous". 2008 Chinese New Year - Rat (but they all look cute & mousey).
Traditional style papercuts of rats (painted/ printed here)
HK MacDonalds Cockeral/ Rat packaging; Disneyland HK's blossom Mickey Head
Lucky Money/ Tree blossom CNY decorations. The round coins with the square hoels are hung in decorated bunches on doors for luck too. I think they were made that shape so they could be kept on strings like jewellery centuries ago?
It's all about pink flowers, and satsumas/ oranges/ lemons. Plum blossom = luck. Chrysanthemum = longevity
At CNY all the lanterns are red/gold and oval shaped. Tinsel is red & gold with lucky money coin-shaped bits sprouting out of it.
Fake fire cracker decorations, hung in bunches & garlands. Real firecrackers were/ are used to scare away the man-eating Nian which emerged once a year. Also they are set off on the 5th day when the god of wealth was born. So dangerous places like HK try to do big public firework displays instead.
Dragons (leungs in cantonese). The yellow head was a Lion dance.... The lantern one was HUGE, taller than a double decker bus. The wee one on red is Dave our nodding dragon.
Koi carp paintings, food etc = surplus to live throughout the year. The rice cake fish above and the gelatin-like sweet were not tasty!
Papercut hung on a door. Apart from the dragon I think it was the type with a couplet or good wishes/ prayers cut into it.
Papercuts. They sell sets loose for putting on windows (they fade really fast - its just tissue paper cut by razors then painted), or framed or as cards.
Chinese Lai-See envelopes - given to kids & others by married couples/ elders at New Year, with (preferabley new) money in it. Lucky.100's of designs from illegal Disney characters to flowers, fish and symbols. Nearly always seems to be red, yellows and gold. Sorry the pics are funny colours - was off my mobile in 1 of the 100's of seasonal enevelope shops!
Yuanbao are boat shaped ingots = money and/or wealth, the standard medium of exchange in ancient China. Now tiny plastic Yuanbao boxes, and pigs and waving lucky cats, hold a bit of chocolate - all the sweet shops sell them around CNY. Will have to go see if they are rat shaped this year! The god/ man has the same beside him ...
My mum in a kids hat we found in a CNY shop - not sure if its a monster, dragon or cat! |
