The Magic of the Blessing Words
I just read an article from Wechat presenting some impressions foreigners have regarding Chinese Lunar New Year. Some talk about the words prohibited to say, and things expected to do as well as cannot be done during the festival. It is funny to see these forums post about the Chinese New Year since most of them are so superficial that make me laugh. The most interesting one, I remember, is that if something bad happens, people will soothe the atmosphere by saying “Come on! It’s Spring Festival.”
Indeed, we are very superstitious during Chinese Festival. We believe that words we speak or things we do in this period will affect the following year. Therefore, we will say special words to wish good luck or “break the curse”.
The words we must say to each other for the New Year start from “Happy New Year”, which is the same as people around the world celebrating the new year, and extend to other lucky words like “wish you good health” (shen ti jian kang), “good luck and happiness to you” (ji xiang ru yi), or “wish you treasures fill the home” (cai yuan guang jin). Nowadays, there are more modern ways to say to each other, like “wish you become more fit”, “wish you have a boyfriend or girlfriend”, or “wish you get a good score.” If we meet people who are close to us, we may also frankly add “lucky money please!” with the greetings. These words can be interchangeable and mainly depend on who you meet.
However, no one will act perfectly as programming robots in Spring Festival. We also say some magic words to “break the curse,” either free someone from an embarrassing situation or soothe the bad effect of a certain action (don’t ask me how I know this, I was a naughty child too). As I mentioned before, “come on, it’s Spring Festival” is a commonly used word to save a tense atmosphere. It quells the anger or other bad tempers aroused, reminding anyone of the special festival and leading them to forgive everything. For example, if two people, A and B, begin to argue, others will try to comfort them by saying “Come on! Calm down, please. It’s Spring Festival.” No matter how large the issue is, everyone will just pretend nothing happens, at least for that moment (but if you want to settle accounts with that person afterward, no one can stop you honestly). There are some actions that should not be done in the New Year. For instance, breaking a cup. I guess it symbolizes quarrels or separations in the future. If someone breaks a cup, others will say “peace all year” (sui sui ping an). It is similar to “bless you” when someone sneezes in the U.S. “Sui” is the homophone for “break” and “year” in Chinese and can be understood as “Though it breaks, you will be fine,” or “you will be fine all year around.”
Similar to the new year in the U.S, we must say some good words to each other. Yes, “must”. No matter whether I have midterms for five weeks or not, which makes me so sad and I don’t feel like saying “Happy New Year” to others who are on vacations, I have to say these good words at the exact date to my elders and teachers to show that I respect them and I care them. But unlike the U.S., we are strongly influenced by the inherited folklores, so we are more superstitious about spoken words in the New Year and strictly follow the rules of good words.
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