gung hay fat choy

happy chinese new year! did you eat all the traditional chinese food for new years? actually, i'm not really sure what all those traditional foods are. I know we eat neen go ( sticky cake) other than that, we just eat a lot of food. However recently i've paid more attention to what other friend's families do. a majority of my friends' families will do the whole red envelope thing and eat traditional new years dishes. They even put fruit all over the house. my parents have never been into superstitious things and never really did the red envelope, special food or fruit thing other than for entertainment value when we were kids. I haven't gotten a red envelope and kept it since i was a kid. and even when we did, we would just hand the money over to our parents.

to a certain extent i know it's silly to do superstitious things for wealth or good fortune. however a part of me wonders if i'm losing out on chinese culture if i don't know about these things. I'm not superstitious at all, but when i have kids - i would like them to know about these customs a little.

on another note - it's president's day and i have to work. almost everyone i know doens't have to work today. =P but i guess it's good to start the new year with making money. haha. hunny pointed out an interesting thing - chinese culture is really focused around money. all the good luck items for new years are for good fortune. and health so you can live long and spend your money. haha.