CNY Countdown 2

As promised in CNY Countdown 1 (CNY Countdown 1), here are some more illustrations of Hong Kong's preparations for the Chinese New Year.

Last time we looked at what was happening on the streets with many specific items being marketed for the CNY. Red was the predominating colour since it stands for happiness, dynamism, good luck, etc; similarly, red-purple stands for luck, fame, money, recognition etc.; pink means love, while gold stands for completeness and wealth, yellow for ripening, royalty and reliability...in fact, most of the shops and stalls are a wash of red and gold...

Outside the apartment blocks and houses, it's traditional to have pots of yellow mandarin oranges and chrysanthemum flowers, like this example from my own apartment block.

However, you can overdo it with the pots of oranges!!!

 Many of the big stores have special displays during CNY. Sometimes the displays are traditional like the Chinese lanterns here at the Aeon store in Kornhill.

The store also had the traditional pink flowers with a string of red firecrackers...

While Tai Koo Shing shopping centre had a rather strange take on birds/flowers for the upcoming Year of the Rooster...

...but there was no mistaking the bird being shown in Festival Walk shopping centre at Kowloon Tong. Check out the CNY costumes of the two kids having their photo taken by proud father.

Just in case it wasn't clear what bird was being shown, Festival Walk had another display further down the mall.

Happiness, pots of money, what's not to like about CNY?

CNY Countdown 1

It's less than two weeks now to Chinese New Year (CNY), which falls on Saturday 28th January this year, introducing the Year of the Rooster.

It seems like only yesterday the shops were full of Special Christmas Offers, now the emphasis is on preparing for Chinese New Year with emphasis on lucky red and gold colours. Most stationery shops have CNY greetings cards and there are specialist shops with cards, greetings posters, lucky money packets, red paper lanterns, strings of imitation red firecrackers, images of gods, goldfish and so on.

And it's not just colourful paper displays, there are also lucky fruits and vegetables to display. Gold-coloured oranges are an obvious choice, meaning abundance and happiness, like this display at the entrance of an apartment block (and the pronunciation of the Chinese word for 'orange' sounds like the Chinese word 'success'):

And of course peach and plumb blossoms variously signify prosperity and growth, perseverance and reliability (and warmer days!). Many of the large stores and shopping malls have displays designed to catch the eye and make doting parents whip out their cellphones to take photographs of their little darlings amid the display (and then hopefully, go shopping).

Do you know what these 'lucky' fruits are?

I mean the curious shaped ones? These...

Me neither...pomeloes, shaddocks?

Of course, if you are lucky you might come across a calligrapher at work on the street, preparing a lucky poster with suitable thoughts of good fortune, whatever your situation in life (child, student, businessman, housewife, lover, artist, athlete, etc etc). You can even ask him to write something particular to your situation ('May my Mark 6 numbers win in 2017' maybe).

 

Most of the large stores and shopping malls have their own displays but this year, instead of the usual static display, the Pacific Place Mall had a small stage showing Chinese Opera extracts. There was only room for an audience of 20 or so and, even with the camera raised over my head, I could not get a clear picture...

I thought 'How do they expect the crowds of people, now about eight or nine deep, many standing on tiptoe, to enjoy the performances????'

And then I realised that they had anticipated the problem; the performances were being video taped and there was a giant screen on the side of the Mall building so that spectators and passers-by alike could enjoy the spectacle.

More photos to follow when I check out the large stores and malls.