Springing into Chinese New Year
Tomorrow marks the beginning of Chinese New Year, without a doubt the biggest festival of the Hong Kong calendar. Families gather together for days of feasting, exchanging well-wishes and red packets of lucky money – lai see.
During the lead-up to the New Year celebrations, I headed down to Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park, where six football pitches are given over for the annual Lunar New Year Fair. Bookended by hot food stalls peddling meat skewers, soup noodles, dumplings and pork chop buns, half of the venue is dedicated to a sprawling flower market.
Those seeking success in their love lives might purchase bundles of peach blossoms, while orchids – representing fertility – are given as gifts to newlyweds and expectant mothers. Rows of tangerine bushes bear witness to the Cantonese love of puns: the word for “tangerine” is also a homonym for “lucky”. Other stalls are decorated with a curious South American fruit, known as “five generations together in one house”. Carefully stacked into New Year trees, these voluptuous, inedible fruit are known in English by a rather more straightforward name.
There was a time when I went for six consecutive years without celebrating Chinese New Year. I missed the family dinners, the bold red door couplets, and the smell of spent gunpowder as it lingered in the air over the harbour. And who could forget the sweet scent of narcissus, the flower of water fairies? Two pots of the white and yellow blossoms now grace the living room, following a family tradition that has existed for as long as I can remember.
Orchids for sale
Snow ball chrysanthemum
Pussy willow
Narcissus blossoms
Tangerines in the sun
“Five generations together in one house”
Miniature lantern
Tropical bounty
Silver and gold
Budding narcissus
Festive flower stall
Feast for the eyes
New Year trees
Lucky bamboo
Auspicious colours
Bundles of peach blossom
Spring comes early in Hong Kong
Plus Ultra 
Those colorful pictures really give me a glimpse of how festive the Chinese New Year celebration in HK is, which equals to Eid al-Fitr celebration across Indonesia. It seems like a very nice day when you went – the colors of the flowers and fruits were not overpowered by the sun. To be honest, I’m not familiar with some of those flowers, but that twisted bamboo sticks look particularly interesting. Oh and who would have thought a fruit with such a straightforward name has a more poetic name in Cantonese!
I couldn’t have asked for better weather myself – if I had gone a day later it would have been foggy and overcast! The twisted bamboo is grown in a special way, rather like those square Japanese strawberries and watermelons. Perhaps it’s more popular this year with its clear association to the form of a snake!
It is now the year of the snake…the water snake to be precise. I am water snake and this is my second water snake year. I don’t suppose I will see another as they only come around every 60 years.
Never say never, Debra!
A true feast for the eye! Thank you for sharing this – just what we need in this grey and cold winter!
You’re more than welcome, Ann-Christine! I’m glad it brightened things up a little. 🙂
Wow!!! So much color. And beautiful photos! Happy New Year of the Snake.
Thank you! Hope you have a blessed Year of the Snake. 🙂
We were there in Hong Kong this time last year for the Flower Sale, parade, and fireworks! It was so much fun! This time of year is so boring in America…makes me really miss China! I’ll have to settle for just sending off a Konming light in my back yard to celebrate. 🙂
That’s one of the perks of living in Hong Kong – getting to celebrate New Year’s twice!
Wow James, such beautiful pictures!! 🙂
Thanks Sophie, I really lucked out with the weather. 🙂
Reblogged this on Haute Mom Living and commented:
A look inside into the beautiful side of the Chinese New Year!
Appreciate that, thanks for reblogging!
Rather belated New Year wishes to you James!
We celebrate several New Years, but none as colourful as yours! Thanks for educating me on the name of that fruit. Saw some in Bangkok and have been trying to figure out what it is called since! It seems more like the face of an animal, rather than any of those appendages listed by Wiki 😀
Thank you, Madhu! I can’t say I’ve ever experienced any Indian New Years, Diwali or otherwise – perhaps that will come in the near future. 😀 As for the fruit, I grew up thinking it resembled a cartoon character more than anything else!
Great!really beautiful 😉
Glad you enjoyed the photos! 🙂