© eye of lady penh

ch-ch-ch-Chinese New Year!

Combo celebration last Sunday (Feb 14th): Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day! Not much in common between those, except the color. Red.

The heart symbol is red to suggest blood (hey, it's a heart!) and passion, but why is red the traditional color for Chinese new year celebrations? Here is the story. There used to be a monster called the Nian, which raised from the sea every lunar year to attack people. But one year, a little boy wearing red clothes scared away the beast: by means of inductive reasoning, some forgotten hero understood the Nian was afraid of the red color and plotted a counterattack (which involved a lot of firecrackers) to get rid of the monster once for all. And it worked.

Happy year of the tiger!