How to bring good luck your way
during the Chinese New Year

Celebrating Chinese New Year in Hong Kong is all about luck.

When we were invited to Hong Kong during the Chinese New Year as an extension of our cruise on the Seabourn Pride in Southeast Asia, we thought we’d be filming a lot of partying. Sort of a Chinese Mardi Gras. Instead, we found ourselves swept up in a very traditional and high-spirited Chinese quest for good fortune in the year ahead.

Our friend from the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Vivian Wong, explained that the greeting on everyone’s lips, “Kung Hei Fat Choi,” means “Congratulations and wishing you prosperity!”

The Chinese do more than wish for prosperity. They follow specific traditions to guarantee luck comes their way. Very proactive. And unlike the single evening that culminates in a slightly tipsy countdown in the western tradition, Chinese New Year celebrations run over several days around the Lunar New Year, so you have some time to rack up the good luck score.

Here are my 5 favourite ways to bring good luck your way during Chinese New Year.

1. THE LION DANCE on the dock as the Seabourn Pride arrived in port. These dances, acrobatic and flirtatious, do more than make you smile. The Lion Dance serves two practical purposes in Chinese culture: the ancient martial arts moves kick out bad spirits, and capture the good. Eat your heart out, Jason Statham!

2. AUSPICIOUS FLOWERS AND PLANTS It seems every one of Hong Kong’s 7 million people was at the New Year’s Midnight Flower Market to tote home good spirits in the form of vegetation on the night before New Years.
There are a couple of ways to go here, so everyone’s taste in flowers can be accommodated: pick plants that have meaning, like the potted orange/kumquat tree that symbolizes prosperity, or pick flowers in colours that represent luck.

We asked Vivian which were the best colours for Chinese New Years’ luck. “Red! Red means good fortune and happiness, and also yellow, yellow means royalty.”

Apparently green is auspicious, too (the colour of money, can’t argue with that!), so we picked out a yellow orchid with vividly green leaves.

Seeing Red: colour, especially red, is a big theme. Not only do Chinese give money in red envelopes called Lai See, people wear red. Lingerie designers even come out with special New Years ensembles. I won’t reveal where I was wearing red, but suffice it to say, I felt lucky from the skin out!

3. FOOD is also part of the celebration, and in the kitchen of 2-Michelin starred executive chef Tsang Chiu King at the Ming Court in the Langham Place Hotel in Mongkok, traditional dim sum takes on new life. This chef has a way with a wok: three foot flames soaring into the air, laughing when we jumped backwards, and moving at the speed of light, he created dishes we’d never seen before, all with a New Years’ Theme. My favourite dim sum was served on the plate with red lobster sauce exploding upwards like a firecracker.

4.FIREWORKS ON THE PLATE were a nod to the fireworks display over Hong Kong Harbour that night. Using the full width of the spectacular Hong Kong skyline as an artistic canvas, featuring designs that included Chinese characters, symbols and those good luck flowers, it put every other fireworks display we’d ever seen to shame. And it should: at an estimated cost of nearly $400,000, the 23-minute show fired 24,000 shells. That’s over 1000 shells every minute, and surely enough explosions and noise to drive away any evil spirits!

5. We never imagined we’d find ourselves at the track on New Years’ Day! Vivian explained how Race Day became such an important part of New Years: if you play the ponies on the first day of the New Year, your luck that day will reflect your luck for the rest of the year. So we wore red, and placed HK $10 bets… and our director’s horse won! Looks like a lucky year for us indeed!

In 2012, Chinese New Year falls on January 23rd, launching the Year of the Dragon. So plan to don a red scarf, buy some gold flowers to decorate your home, go for dim sum, and usher some good luck into your own life for the coming year!

Join Lynn Elmhirst as she turns cruise virgins into cruise lovers on Ship2Shore.
Airing on Travel + Escape every Thursday at 9:30pm ET.

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