BEIJING/HONG KONG: From snake-themed events to whether your luck is in: discover all you need to know about the coming Lunar New Year in our Year of the Snake 2025 series.
The Lunar New Year holiday is associated with indulgence. During the festival, dinner tables heave with whole fish, platters of sticky glutinous rice cake, or nin go, and turnip cake, and prosperity boxes overflow with symbolic sweet treats.
Whether it is eating dumplings – thought to resemble gold ingots – for good luck or a multi-course menu whose every dish has an auspicious-sounding name, what you eat and what fortune you attract is believed to be tightly intertwined.
Having a plump whole fish represents abundance in the new year, and ordering a plate of pig’s trotters with lettuce suggests receiving fortune and wealth.
But what about the taboo dishes or culinary faux pas you should be avoiding during the Lunar New Year festival?
We take a look at dishes and practices to avoid in the lead-up to and during this most superstitious of festivals.
1. Eating congee
While comforting bowls of congee are welcome at most times of the year, the rice porridge’s association with thriftiness and austerity is considered a no-no during the Lunar New Year celebrations.
Because historically congee was made by stretching a small quantity of rice with plenty of water, and associated with poverty and hardship, it is seen as inauspicious to have during the festival. To do so would be akin to bringing a year of financial hardship upon yourself.
2. Eating meat
One tradition is to not eat meat on the first day of the Lunar New Year.
Buddhism decrees that we eat vegetarian on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, it being taboo to kill animals on these days. A vegetarian meal also suggests cleansing and purification for the year ahead.
3. Chopping meat
If you do not subscribe to the above vegetarian rule and cannot live without your meat, then at least avoid cooking that requires you to chop or slice your dinner on Lunar New Year’s day.
Many believe that sharp objects such as knives, as well as scissors and needles, should be avoided because using them symbolises cutting the thread of good luck for the year ahead.
4. Finishing your fish
Fish is often a feature on the Lunar New Year dining table, as the word for it in Chinese, yu, sounds like the word for abundance or surplus.
Therefore, many who dine on fish on Lunar New Year’s eve traditionally leave the head and tail untouched, to be saved for the next day. This represents the idea that they will always have enough on their plates for the coming year.
5. An empty rice bucket
Rice is often symbolic of money – thus the “not eating congee” rule above. This is seen in Cantonese phrases such as yau mai (“have rice”) for being wealthy and daa laan fan woon (“broke the rice bowl”) for going bankrupt.
Therefore, to ensure you remain in good financial standing and to avoid going hungry, both figuratively and literally, you need to make sure your supply of rice at home is well maintained, and your rice receptacle filled to the brim. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
