Window on China

It's Chinese New Year this week, or the Spring Festival as some call it.

This year is Year of the Dragon so expect a year that's busy and exciting!

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Ten Auspicious Customs to Follow For a Prosperous Year

Kung Hei Fat Choi! (Happy Chinese New Year!) Auspiciousness is very important at Chinese New Year because the start of Chinese New Year determines your fortune for the rest of the year.

As cosmopolitan as it is, Hong Kong still inherits and follows the most colourful customs of Chinese New Year. Follow the Ten Auspicious Customs of Chinese New Year in Hong Kong and get a great start to the Year of Monkey!

1. Dress in Red! Good Luck will Shine from Head to Toe.

Red is associated with joy, happiness, good luck, wealth and good fortune. It also symbolises fire and it can ward off evil spirits. Dressing in red on the first day of the New Year will bring you good luck for the rest of the year!

2. Smile and Smile! Let Only Good Words Come from your Mouth.

Greeting everyone you see with a big smile and a blessing will bring you happiness and an upbeat spirit for the New Year. Don’t say any bad words.

Here’s a tip if you speak Cantonese. Avoid the following words, which are pronounced the same as some bad words: the number “4” sounds the same as “dead”, “book” sounds the same as “lose”, “shoes” sounds the same as a “sigh”. So watch what you say, or an evil spirit will follow you for the rest of the year!

3. Give Thanks to the Spirits! Pray for Good Fortune in the New Year.

During Chinese New Year, locals go to the temple to give thanks for the past 12 months and pray for good fortune in the New Year. To plan ahead for the New Year, follow the locals and draw the fortune sticks to get a glimpse of your luck in the New Year.

4. Watch a Lion Dance! Get Good Energy in the New Year.

The lion signifies courage, stability and superiority. In the lion dance performance, the lion moves to the musical rhythm of the drum and mimic various moods with its movements, which make it look life-like. To absorb good energy from the lion, watch the lion dance and be as strong as a lion in the New Year!

5. Do not get a dog or wear dog-shaped jewellery this New Year.

Other things to do (or not!)...

6. Looking for Mr or Ms Right? Circle a Peach Blossom Tree to Find your Partner.

Peach blossoms symbolise luck in love. To attract this luck, walk around a peach blossom tree three times in a clockwise direction. Your Mr. or Ms. Right is bound to show up in the New Year.

7. Place a Tangerine Tree at home for Good Luck and Fortune in the New Year.

In Chinese, the character and pronunciation of “Tangerine” and “Luck” are the same, and the colour of tangerines is a bit like gold. This makes it the perfect auspicious item for a business person. People who do business will have a tangerine tree at home or at the shop front to wish for “great luck, great profit” in the New Year.

8. Spin Away the Bad Luck and Attract Good Luck with a Pinwheel.

So last year wasn’t that great? Get a Pinwheel!

According to Chinese customs, spinning a pinwheel wards off the bad luck, and brings good fortune. “Spinning” in Chinese has the same meaning as “change”, so by spinning the wheel, you can “change” your luck from bad to good.

9. Bring Warm Blessings to your House with Hand-Written Fai Chun.

Fai Chun is red paper with phrases wishing good luck, prosperity and other blessings. People stick Fai Chun on the door to make the coming year a fruitful and lucky one.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand Chinese, because the golden writing by the calligraphy master is sure to be appropriate and makes it an art piece to be showcased at home, giving your home an authentic Hong Kong touch.

10. Decorate your House with Plenty of Red for a Jubilant Festive Atmosphere.

For Chinese people, red is associated with "happiness and good fortune". If you decorate your house in red, it means good fortune and happiness will stay in your home.

During Chinese New Year, people visit relatives and friends. Your home decorations will give your home a jubilant festive atmosphere and your guests a warm blessing for a Happy New Year.

More about the Lunar New Year........

- This material supplied by The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB)

Let's visit China!

What better time than this to take a look at China. It's a huge country - about the size of the USA – and its population, 1.3 billion, is larger than any other country in the world.

So let's take a clockwise zip around the country beginning at the capital, Beijing, and then a quick look at where some of China's 50 million Overseas Chinese live. We can be sure that every one of them will be celebrating right now and for days to come, many with the same customs their ancestors have handed down for hundreds of years.

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Beijing - see who likes bamboo best?

Most people remember that Beijing hosted the XXIX Olympics in August 2008 and while all eyes were on this major city then, there is much to see and do there right now.

Don’t miss this baker’s dozen of places – some well-known, others recent discoveries:

Tian’anmen Square: This is the focus of the city – a huge open space said to be able to hold a million people at one time – with a huge picture of Mao’s smiling face at the far end. It’s a relaxed place with people flying kites, selling postcards and watches (with Mao waving on them) and of course photographing each other. Models of the smiling Olympic mascots are here too, as well as the Olympics countdown clock.

Make friends with the pandas at Beijing Zoo. These indolent guys might amble into the sunshine for a photograph, but don’t be surprised if they simply sit in a corner of their enclosure chewing on bamboo – their favourite food.

Shanghai the super-city

In downtown Shanghai I am stopped by two teenaged Chinese girls. They stand in front of me, arms linked, boosting each other's confidence.

"Where you from?" they ask. "You like Shanghai?"

Their questions are carefully framed. School lesson format. They are language students, eager to test their pronunciation. We chat in jerky sentences. They hesitate then offer, shyly, an amazing observation.

"You look ex-otic," one says, and they duck their heads and giggle.

I have to be sure I've heard right. I make them repeat it, for this is a first for me. But they're for real. Obviously, blonde-red hair - curly too - is a rarity in this straight black-bobbed world they inhabit and so, in their eyes, I am somehow 'exotic'. Hmmm!

Yet, hairstyles are one of the few things not on the move in modern Shanghai where the cityscape - most of it constructed in the past decade or so - seems straight off a futuristic sketchpad.

Parts of it belong to the ballpoint pen school of architecture - tall, cylindrical, with a conical top and pointed tip. A good way to enjoy the skyline is to take a sunset cruise on the Huangpu river. Shanghai is about 10 kilometres from the mouth of the river at the delta.

Others could have come straight from the set of Star Wars, their bobbles and flying saucer shapes glowing pink and silver, frosty blue and amber, linked by impossibly thin towers.

Yellow Mountain and its myths

We woke at 5am, roused by our neighbours' excited chattering. They were moving around noisily in the next room and I knew they would be hurriedly pulling on heavy clothes and big boots.

The rush was on. Daybreak would be at 5.45am, dawn at 6.15am. Far too early for me I decided, yet I couldn't stay in bed either. The air of anticipation was infectious.

A thin line of brightness lit the eastern horizon. There was just enough light to make out shadows scurrying around below in the forecourt. Soon streams of people in red caps and warmly padded maroon jackets loaned by the hotel were heading for the paths that led to the various lookouts. Already I could see a bright cluster forming on a high ridge and hear the shouts and whoops of some people the sun to rise.

In typically Chinese way, the attractions of the Yellow Mountains are listed and numbered. There are four "wonders": odd-shaped pines, grotesque rock formations, seas of constantly changing clouds and crystal-clear springs. Daybreak seemed to be the ideal time to see at least three of these.

Hong Kong - modern city, ancient beliefs

On a busy street corner, amongst the crowds of shoppers and workers, we discovered another crowd, jostling on a table. For sale, a microcosm of this multicultural city.

With a population of over seven million, Hong Kong's ethnic mix is varied. Although around 93 percent is Chinese, people from Southern Asian as well as the sub-continent, Britons, Americans, Canadians, Japanese, and Koreans all live and work here.

The city is packed with high-rise modern buildings, yet an ancient practice underpins the architecture and design of most new buildings. Feng shui – the design system that concerns man's relationship to nature and when well executed results in good luck and prosperity – is more than just a fad in Hong Kong. There are special tours of the city's architecture which shows it in practice.

For instance when a valuable piece of real estate came free some years back,there were some strings attached. Statue Square, on Hong Kong Island, outside the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, has to remain low rise. Nothing can be built on it that will block the bank's view of the water.

Read on....

Macau and the magic of money

When Macau is mentioned, some people think only of massive casinos. Others are thrilled by its history; many more, though, simply smack their lips with thoughts of its multi-cultural cuisine.

And some just head straight to Coloane in the far south to relax in the shady village that just happens to be home to some of the best custard tarts on the planet!

It's impossible to say which is the best. There are so many facets, so much to see and do. Who could decide what are the most important things!

Let's take a quick trip to Macau - and you be the judge.

Macau is tiny – a peninsula and two islands, the total area just 23.5 square kilometres, and since 1999 it has been a Special Autonomous Region of China.

But the Portuguese influence is strong, and little wonder as it was a Portuguese colony for four hundred years from the mid-1500s. You see it in the Catholic churches, especially in the one landmark everyone sees, the ash-grey facade of St Paul's, built in 1602, which looms over the old town of Macau.

WATCH THE VIDEO (ABOVE)

Not everyone sees the other place of worship tucked in behind the cathedral, though, where a small Buddhist temple is lovingly tended by local worshippers. It is this close mix of cultures which makes Macau unique and so interesting to visit. Read on....

Tibet - region of mystery

Tibet has long been a region of mystery. High on the Tibetan plateau, it seems a different world, somehow. While there has been much turmoil, butter lamps glow again now in monasteries throughout the country. Incense rises and the muttering sing-song om-chants continue, scarcely missing a beat. Maroon and saffron-robed monks pace the corridors while tiny novices hunch over their lessons, eager to do well lest they be reincarnated as a hungry hound wandering aimlessly in the dusty temple grounds.

The scenery varies from pine forest rich with rhododendrons to bare sparse country where the houses are created from the local soil. Icy streams flow through them and you can only imagine how cruel the winters are.

Lhasa, the capital is the magnet for pilgrims and tourists. The mighty Potala Palace is central to Tibetan Buddhist belief and prayer flags flutter from rooftops. On country roads leading to the capital you may see pilgrims travelling the most gruelling way - prostrating themselves, then rising, moving up to the hand-print, prostrating again, then rising up still yet-again. A million stony body-lengths to Lhasa. Or more. In the capital itself there are dozens, hundreds, in slip-sliding prostration at the doorway of the major temple.

The Silk Road - linking Europe and Asia for over 2000 years

A young man in a white skullcap brandishes a long knife. He’s beckoning us to notice his chrome, cross-shaped machine – part Middle-Ages torture implement with sharp points and a hefty screw, part useful tool - and the rich crimson liquid bleeding into a red bucket below it.

He’s got bottles of the stuff already filled, and just as we are about to shudder and turn away, we realise he’s squashing the ruby juice from pomegranates.

The place is absolutely bursting with people. They come for the food – mounds of figs, cartwheels of bread, baked sheep’s heads, pomegranates - the energy, and the socialising. It was hard to imagine that a thousand years ago (and a thousand years before that) this place would have been just as busy.

The saga of the Silk Road is a long and complicated one, the story of a hapless scout that spent more time in gaol than research, a mystery fabric craved as much for the manufacture of pennants as petticoats, and a trade route that flourished, then foundered.

The Silk Road covers thousands of kilometres from Xian in the east (already 1165 kilometres west of Beijing) with several routes branching north, south and central, seeking mountain passes and safe passage. The world’s rarest and most precious commodities passed this way, and the travellers also traded knowledge, culture, religion, and bloodlines. Born in mythic times, in the end it gave way to simple economics - ships of the sea over ships of the desert. Read more...

Malaysia

Home to about seven million Overseas Chinese, Malaysia has a complex ethnic mix. Penang, an island on the north-west coast is known for its Nyonya or Peranakan food.

As you drive or walk around you will notice the unique Peranakan houses such as this one above. Ornamented and colourful, they come from the 19th century when the Straits Chinese settlers married local Malay people and together created a distinct new culture which embraced everything from furniture, art and craft, clothing - and of course (because this is Malaysia, after all) - food!

This roadside sign offers two of Penang's iconic dishes. Laksa is a Peranakan dish and can be found anywhere that ethnic group settled - especially Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. CNN Travel has ranked Penang Assam Laksa 7th out of the 50 most delicious food in the world. Soup-like Assam laksa is made with mackerel and its distinctive flavour comes from tamarind which gives the dish a sourish taste.

But that is too simple a way to describe its composition. Like many other signature dishes from cuisines around the world, cooks who make laksa are fiercely protective of their own recipe - devised over the generations – and highly critical of the efforts of others who also make it!

Enjoy this short video of the Hawker Food of Penang

Read more....

Singapore

Singapore has nearly three million Overseas Chinese, and many of its major businesses have Chinese links. Feng shui is used often in positioning or decorating buildings.