Celebrating the Chinese New Year 2022

Happy Lunar New Year!

February 1st marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar Calendar, and also the first day of Spring. In China, it’s the kick-off to the Spring Festival celebrations, which will continue into the following full moon. During this time our Production Partners in China are on holiday, and we are wishing them all a joyful and rejuvenating time with their loved ones.

Chinese New Year Traditions

Traditions vary by region, but generally include gathering and feasting with family from afar, letting go of the past and welcoming new opportunities, exchanging gifts, saying prayers for good harvests, acknowledging ancestors, and performing rituals of protection.

Year of the Tiger

Each year of the lunar calendar is attributed to a specific animal from the Chinese Zodiac. 2022 is the Year of the Tiger.

Chinesenewyear.net suggests that people born under the year of the tiger, like the animal itself, are ‘vigorous and ambitious, daring and courageous, enthusiastic and generous, self-confident with a sense of justice and a commitment to help others for the greater good.’ We’ll take it!

How our Production Partner's Celebrate

We checked in with our Production Partners and Garment Makers in Chanshu City, China, curious about their favorite Spring Festival traditions. Here are a few things they shared:

FOOD

In Chinese culture, Fish symbolize Surplus, so New Years' Eve dinner is a whole fish. We will not eat all of it, to symbolize the surplus coming to us in the new year.

In our region, wontons are also eaten on the fifth day to bring good fortune, because wontons symbolize gold. Other special foods include egg dumplings, soy sauce fried fish, rice cakes, and rice dumplings.

RED ENVELOPE (HONG BAO)

Children love the Hong bao tradition of traveling as a family to visit all of their relatives to collect gifts of ‘Lucky Money’. Today, this tradition is also utilized for promotional and marketing purposes, in the form of ‘lucky money’ sales and client gift cards.

Their Hopes for the Year

We also asked them about their hopes for this New Year of the Tiger:

Miss Tang- ‘I hope my son will have a successful completion to his last year's university study.’

Mr. Tang- ‘I hope the business will continue growing so I can have a good retirement in a few years.’

Miss Gui & Miss Guo said: ‘We hope the kids have success in exams, and we hope our business will have a bright future.’

Anthony- ‘I hope the COVID pandemic will be gone soon and the whole world can get back to normal so we can travel again. Tiger is the king of the jungle, so I believe its power will sweep away all the bad things and bring good fortune.’

Cheers to a year of positive growth, success, and good fortune for all!