Top 6 Chinese New Year Taboos To Avoid

Do you believe in superstitions? Well, Chinese New Year is full of them! Here are the top six no-nos for Chinese New Year’s Day, as well as a few days surrounding it.

If you enjoy a hearty bowl of porridge (or zhou) every morning, consider skipping it for a day. It’s believed that porridge should be avoided on new year’s day since it was once considered poor people's food, and you wouldn't dream of starting the year off “poor,” right?

Pull out the dry shampoo if you wash your hair on a daily basis. In Mandarin, hair (发, fā) has the same pronunciation – and indeed is the same character – as in 发财 fācái, which means "to become wealthy." Therefore, it's advised not to “wash one’s fortune away” at the beginning of the New Year. One should also avoid cutting hair on this day since it’s believed to bring misfortune to one’s uncles.

You really shouldn’t be swearing anyway, but during CNY it’s exceptionally bad. It’s believed that you should avoid saying words related to death, sickness, poverty, ghosts, etc. People replace these terms with euphemisms if they need to talk about such topics, for example saying “somebody is gone” instead of “somebody died.”

Now here’s one I can get behind on new year’s day (or any day of the year actually). It’s believed that people should not do laundry on the first and second day of the lunar new year since these two days are celebrated as the water god's birthday, and doing laundry is regarded as disrespectful to that diety. Plus, in ancient times, water symbolized wealth, and it was believed that as you pour the water away, you’re pouring away your fortune.

From the first to the fifth day of the new lunar year it was believed that sewing means you’re setting yourself up for a hard year of non-stop work. I guess the idea is if you can’t even take five days off to rest for CNY, then you really don’t need to rest at all for the rest of the year.

Here’s another one I can get behind. The act of sweeping on this day is associated with sweeping wealth away. Likewise, taking out the garbage symbolizes dumping out good luck or good fortune from the house.

Images: Pexels

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