BEIJING : Chinese New Year
Chinese around the world will be welcoming the Year of the Rooster with Lunar New Year celebrations on Jan. 23.
In Beijing and elsewhere in China, the holiday is a time for family reunions, feasting and a deafening roar of firecrackers at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Shops in China are selling rooster toys, rooster stamps, rooster paper-cuts and other items with the rooster motif, which is a symbol of good luck. The words for rooster and luck have virtually the same pronunciation in Chinese.
Another traditional belief about the rooster is that it is an incarnation of the sun god because it crows in the morning. Also, it can chase away evil because it eats centipedes, said to represent evil.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
