A Cantonese taboo

If you are Cantonese and your parents are superstitious, they might tell you not to buy shoes during the Chinese New Year period.

Shoe is 'hai' in Cantonese. Rough (not smooth) is also hai in Cantonese. So, do you want to have a rough life for the whole year? Furthermore, hai is also a sighing sound. For example, if you ask someone something and he sighed 'hai' before answering, it means something unfortunate or sad has happened.

On the other hand, you can buy a lot of trousers in the CNY period because trousers is 'fu' in Cantonese which also means wealth.

三陽開泰

I like Chinese New Year and look forward to it. I love the CNY festive atmosphere, especially in Chinatown. It is very crowded in Chinatown. But crowds is part of the atmosphere. 

There is also a CNY festive fair in my neighbourhood.

Another reason is that I have excuses to buy things to eat and to replace old things with new ones.

This queue was for the Lim Chee Quan barbecue meat at Chinatown. It stretched to Lucky Chinatown. I guess there were about 100 people. People towards the end of the Q probably would spend a few hours queuing. I think it is a waste of time even if the meat is very good.

三陽開泰 ...

羊年到時，人們喜歡用「羊」字討個吉利，「三羊開泰」中的「羊」字其實是借了太陽的「陽」的諧音。正確的應該寫成「三陽開泰」。這個詞來源於《周易》六十四卦中的泰卦。「三陽」意為春天開始，表示冬去春來，陰陽消長，萬物復蘇.

三陽, 依照字面來析，解釋為三個太陽比較直觀，既早陽、正陽、晚陽。朝陽啟明，其臺光熒；正陽中天，其臺宣朗；夕陽輝照，其臺騰射。均含勃勃生機之意。

三陽交泰 : 有好運即將降臨之意。常用以稱頌歲首或寓意吉祥，成為歲首人們用來互相祝福的吉利話。