Chinese New Year Traditions: Getting Ready

 Chinese New Year is almost upon us. The Year of the Ox will leave, and the Year of the Tiger will begin at midnight February 1. According to tradition, families are supposed to clean their houses well. Red paper strips with lucky sayings written in calligraphy are pasted across the top of the door and on each side doorpost. Red lanterns are hung in the doorway, if the entrance allows it. People buy new, red clothes, and make lots of good food. A favorite is "year cake" or "nian gao," which is made with sticky rice. Of course, Chinese New Year 2022 is happening in the midst of a pandemic surge, and for some people, social distancing makes it harder to keep up with traditions. But, for the Lego people in the Chinese New Year collection series, there is no need to fear infection with a plague. 

In this scene from the 2020 collection, the grandfather is scrubbing the windows and touching up the red paint on the grills. Grandfather's younger brother has just finished pasting the papers with lucky sayings around the front door, and Grandmother has emerged from the kitchen to check on his work. Father has come back from buying more bottle rockets, while Older Brother is dressed as a Chinese zodiac Ox and is hanging a string of firecrackers from the roof. The little kids are making a snowman in the front yard because they are on vacation from school. 

The bottle rockets and firecrackers will all be set off exactly at midnight of the new year. But why make so much noise in the middle of the night? What is up with all the red? And why are there always lion dancers with drums and cymbals and their own bottle rockets at Chinese New Year celebrations? In the 2019 Lego Chinese New Year collection, the village lion dancer club is practicing by the old village gate in the marketplace for their midnight performance in the village streets. 

Legend has it that all the cleaning and decorations on family homes are necessary to protect everyone from being eaten at midnight by the "Year Beast" or "Nian shou." The Nian Beast is said by some to live in the mountains and by others to live in the sea. In all the legends, it comes to places with lots of humans on midnight of Chinese New Year, just as the old year is leaving and the new year is arriving. At this moment, the Nian Beast comes to eat people and animals and to destroy whatever it finds. Some legends say that the lion dancers dress up like the Nian Beast and dance to loud drums and cymbals to scare the Nian Beast away and keep their homes safe. 

This is Lego's version of the Nian Beast. It looks like drawings in folktale books that I have seen. It also resembles the lion dancers' costumes. Will the Nian Beast eat anyone this Chinese New Year? Or will the lion dancers scare it away?