When I lived in Brunei we celebrated Christmas, end of Ramadan (Eid) and Chinese New Year as well as the Queen’s Birthday and the Sultan’s Birthday – a nice lot of holidays.
The Chinese New Year’s Day is actually longer than a day, and this year it is 12-14th February. Each year is called a different animal; this year it is the year of the Ox. Someone who was, or will be, born in this year is supposed to be diligent, dependable, strong, and determined (Google will tell you which Chinese Year you were born in).
Some of their celebrations are very similar to our Christmas celebrations. They decorate their houses – usually with red lanterns and paper cut outs – buy new clothes, special foods and have a big family dinner. The children are given money, always in red envelopes as red is supposed to bring good luck and is China’s lucky colour so it’s called “lucky money”.
Chinese people believe what they do on the first day of the lunar year will affect their luck during that year. They visit family and friends, like the Muslims do at the end of Ramadan and we do at Christmas. So we will visit the lovely Chinese family who live next door and wish them “A Happy New Year” and I have a party bag for each of the children which Dawn, our Lay Employee at Felixstowe, has very kindly made for me to give them.
I hope I have given you all something to think about and perhaps encourage you to learn more about their fascinating culture.
Prayer
Dear Lord, help us to learn and understand each other’s culture so that we can appreciate why we all do some things differently but also similarly
Amen.