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Wishes, pictures, and riddles are often added to embellish lanterns during Chinese New Year.Lauren Mack / About.com Chinese New Year’s celebrations culminate with the Lantern Festival, a glowing spectacle of lanterns, cacophonous firecrackers, and mouthwatering food. Lanterns are hung outside homes and children carry small lanterns during the Lantern Festival.
While modern lanterns come in all shapes and sizes – like paper, bamboo, and metal shaped like spheres, diamonds, animals and cartoon characters – symbolic colors help Chinese New Year revelers’ wishes come true.
Red: Good fortunePink: RomancePeach-red: Decisions and opportunitiesOrange: MoneyYellow: Success in school and/or jobWhite: HealthLight Green: GrowthLight Blue: Hoping something comes trueLight Purple: IdealismAt lantern festivals, like the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival in Taiwan, lanterns of varying colors and sizes are for sale. Revelers will choose the color that expresses their wishes and then write their corresponding wishes on the lantern. At some lantern festivals, the lanterns are launched like hot air balloons into the night sky.
Knowing whether you’re hot, cold, or neutral (yin or yang) helps determine your fortune plus other things like what your lucky and unlucky colors are.
Decorating your home or office or accenting your clothing with your lucky color is said to enhance your luck. It’s not necessary to dye your hair a lucky color or solely wear lucky color clothing or decorate your home or office entirely in lucky colors, though in general, the more lucky colors, the better.
Yang Unlucky Colors (Hot or Neutral People of Yang Nature) Yin Lucky Colors (Cold or Neutral People of Yin Nature) Yin Unlucky Colors (Cold or Neutral People of Yin Nature)If your household contains yin and yang people, then neutral colors (beige, yellow, and brown) can be used to strike a balance. Neutral colors won’t make anyone’s luck better or worse.
Disclaimer: Consulting a Chinese almanac like 2011 Chinese Almanac by Peter So (ISBN 978-988-1905-6-9) or a fortune teller will help you find a detailed, more personal fortune. The 2011 Chinese Almanac by Peter So (ISBN 978-988-1905-6-9) was consulted to compile the information provided here, which is for entertainment purposes only.
