Of all the practices of all the ancient civilisations, few of them are as widely celebrated today as Chinese New Year. The most important event on the 4,000-year-old Chinese Lunar calendar, it’s a time of celebration and family. From January 23, communities across the country will welcome the Year of the Dragon.

For 15 days, the festivities continue: houses are cleaned and decorated, good luck offerings are made to ancestors, firecrackers are set off, and food is prepared on a grand scale for friends and relatives. The Chinese believe that whatever you do over New Year's will be reflected the whole year through. That’s why New Year's traditions reflect what is truly important to Chinese culture: family, prosperity and food.

Symbolism

Everything that happens over the New Year period is designed to bring good fortune. To encourage prosperity, there’s a sense of generosity over this time: children are given money in lucky red envelopes, huge feasts are prepared and shared, gifts and good wishes are exchanged liberally. Auspicious symbols can be seen everywhere, especially at mealtimes.

Foods are considered lucky for two reasons: because of their appearance, or the sound of their names. Examples of lucky-looking foods are long, uncut noodles, symbolising a long life, and whole eggs representing fertility. An example of a lucky sounding food is the pomelo (yo in Chinese) which sounds like the word “to have”.  A whole fish fits both categories – the word for fish (yu) sounds like “abundance” in Chinese, while the serving of the head and tail symbolises abundance from beginning to end of the coming year.

Family

For Australian-Chinese chef Kylie Kwong, owner of Billy Kwong restaurant in Sydney, the activity of preparing and eating a New Year’s meal facilitates families spending time together. “We have a large family gathering of about 30-40 relatives – my mother has 10 brothers and sisters – and we all take food to a relative’s home, and cook together and eat together.

"The New Year's Eve dinner is especially sumptuous and always includes chicken, which must be presented with head, tail and feet, to symbolise completeness, and a whole fish.” The dinner is called wei lu (meaning “to surround the stove”) because the whole family is gathered around this central feast. “For me, Chinese New Year is about celebrating the importance of food and family – both of which are central to the Chinese culture. Food is all we ever think about!”

William Hui is the chef and owner of MahJong Room restaurant in Sydney, and grew up celebrating New Year with his extended family in Hong Kong. He says preparation for a New Year's meal starts days before. “In the old days, all the women in the family would get together to cook and talk and socialise. Dinner would be an eight-course meal; we’d have soup, chicken, fish and desserts, like red bean or lotus bean soup. Soup is lucky because all the ingredients in one pot represent harmony and family unity. A New Year’s meal would usually take a couple of hours; we really took our time over it. We would eat a bit, and take a break for mahjong or karaoke, and then eat some more. After that, we might visit the night market or flower market. The day just didn’t stop.”

Traditions

In China, New Year's dining traditions vary from region to region. Nian gao, a sticky rice cake, is eaten over New Year in Southern China. Its name can be turned into a pun, nian nian gao sheng, meaning “to increase prosperity every year”. In the North, steamed buns called man tou are considered lucky for their round shape, representing family reunion and wholeness. Dumplings or jiao zi are common to all regions and symbolise wealth, their crescent shape resembling the gold ingots of ancient currency.

Some dishes combine many lucky ingredients into one auspicious superfood. The vegetarian Buddha’s Delight (luo han jai) is one such dish, incorporating lotus seed (fertility); ginkgo nut (prosperity); black fungus and lily buds (wealth); bamboo shoots (wellness); and dried tofu (happiness). Fresh tofu is an unlucky food that is never served on Chinese New Year because of its white colour. White symbolises death, while red represents happiness. Traditionally, white clothing is worn at funerals and red clothing at Chinese weddings.

The Tray of Togetherness is another collection of lucky foods. A special tray divided into eight sections (eight in Chinese sounds like the word for “fortune”) is filled with sweets such as candied melon (growth and health), melon seed (happiness), lychee nut (family), cumquat (wealth), coconut (togetherness), peanuts (longevity), longan and lotus seeds (fertility and children). Sweets and cakes are common gifts when paying visits over this period, representing the wish for a sweet new year.

Creating your own banquet

There are too many traditional New Year's foods to list them all here, but if you are hosting a banquet at home, Kylie Kwong suggests several main dishes (including noodles, chicken and fish), with a couple of complementary side dishes, such as the dumplings in the slideshow above. Above all, she says, keep it simple. “The most important thing about Chinese New Year is being with your friends and family in heart and spirit.”

To make the occasion even more special, set the table with red and gold napkins and placemats, put a vase of fresh flowers on the table (for career growth and a blossoming year), and hang paper lanterns from the ceiling. If you’re invited to a banquet, it is customary to bring a gift of fruit. Oranges and mandarins symbolise wealth and luck – wrap them in red tissue paper for an extra lucky present.

Gong xi fa cai!