Things to know about the Chinese New Year in case Eddie McGuire ever asks

I've never completely understood the concept behind the Chinese New Year. So, just in case I ever go on Millionaire's Hot Seat and Eddie McGuire asks me something about it, I thought I would dig up some factoids to store for trivial purposes.

The Chinese New Year is China's most important festival and is all to do with the moon. Much like our friend, the ocean. It's also referred to as the Lunar New Year because the Chinese calender is lunarsolar.

If you're in China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore or any area with a significant population of Chinsese, they'll stop work to celebrate the coming of the new year. A good reason to set up shop at your local Chinatown and get yourself another public holiday.

The whole sha-bang is a massive celebration of wealth, health and happiness. Children wish their parents a happy new year and receive money in a red envelope (kinda like getting a Baby Born, but different...). They recognise the coming year by covering their doors and windows with coloured paper cut outs. And of course, there's food. Duck's foot, anyone?

But what really interests me is the idea of each year being represented by an animal zodiac. This calender is an incorporation of the lunar calender and the solar calender. The whole business gets a bit tricky once you try to line it up with the Gregorian calender, so I'll skip that part. The animals are known as the 12 Earthly Branches and their order is steeped in Chinese legend. But the story is kind of long and I don't think I could tell it nearly as well as Wikipedia does so you can read more about that here.

Anyway, this year is The Year of the Dragon and if you think about it, there are some pretty sweet dragons around town.

Puff the Magic Dragon, who lives by the sea. Very cool.

Falkor the Luckdragon from The Neverending Story who looks like a giant, flying shih tzu.

And Mulan's Mushu. A tad annoying at times, but never the less, a handy dragon-friend to have in a sticky spot.

And the best part of The Year of the Dragon? It's the luckiest year in the Chinese Zodiac. So look out for a whole lot of good luck coming your way. I know I've already had my fair share. The Year of the Dragon has brought me a new full-time job working as the online-editor at Sydney's Girl PR.

Looks like Puff is on my side.


KH.