Red is good luck today. It's Chinese New Year, and people traditionally wear red clothes and decorate with red lanterns and write poems on red paper. There is a big red dragon dance to scare away evil stuff. Children are given red play money in envelopes. Red symbolizes fire, which drives away bad luck. This is the year of the rabbit. According to legend, Buddha once asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year, and then he named a year after each one. People born in that year would have some of the animal's characteristics, and those born in rabbit years are compassionate, popular and sincere. In China, the New Year holiday is a time for family reunions and a large feast followed by fireworks to drive away bad spirits.
Noise and spirits. American church worship can be a hushed affair, but in other parts of world religion is exuberant and noisy. Back in the 90's we spend New Year's week at a spa resort in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The hotel was adjacent to a church, and a canon was fired off around the clock to mark everything from baptisms to weddings. And sometimes I think just for the fun of it, because people liked noise coming from their church. John's brother and sister-in-law spend their winters in the Mexican town of Bucerias, and they described a long January fiesta to celebrate the town's patron saint. There are daily pilgrimages at all hours to the church, complete with Roman candles and mariachi bands. Click here for a link to their blog with photographs.
Happy Lunar New Year! And I hope the rabbit is good to you.
Noise and spirits. American church worship can be a hushed affair, but in other parts of world religion is exuberant and noisy. Back in the 90's we spend New Year's week at a spa resort in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The hotel was adjacent to a church, and a canon was fired off around the clock to mark everything from baptisms to weddings. And sometimes I think just for the fun of it, because people liked noise coming from their church. John's brother and sister-in-law spend their winters in the Mexican town of Bucerias, and they described a long January fiesta to celebrate the town's patron saint. There are daily pilgrimages at all hours to the church, complete with Roman candles and mariachi bands. Click here for a link to their blog with photographs.
Happy Lunar New Year! And I hope the rabbit is good to you.
Suzy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the plug! If you can get away from the 9000 things that you do, come on down. Leave my bro at home if you cannot get him out of the house. Still time left this year; plan on next year in any case. Next week we vacation in Oaxaca for a bit.
djt