China marks Year of the Dog with a bang
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-29 11:10

DUMPLINGS AND GOLD

Many Chinese saw in the new year eating dumplings that are supposed to symbolize wealth, because the pastry-wrapped parcels of meat and vegetables take the shape of gold and silver ingots of China's imperial past.

And there are many traditional taboos over the spring festival. Crying on new year's day means you will cry for the rest of the year, and washing hair is out as it signifies washing away good luck.

Likewise, the number "four," which sounds like the word for "death," is banned, and knives or scissors should not be used because they may cut off good fortune.

But for some, all the festivities and the commotion cannot erase the nostalgia.

"New Year isn't as much fun as it used to be," said Shanghai resident Lao Xu, whose childhood home was razed to make way for the glamorous skyscrapers of the Pudong business district.

"Back then, we all lived in smaller houses and everyone knew everyone else," he said. "Now people live in apartments and stay out of each other's business, and it isn't as much fun any more."

Indeed, some worry that New Year traditions are being lost in the country's headlong rush to develop economically.

"It is being attacked by Western culture," Henan University Professor Gao Youpeng wrote this week in the official Guangming Daily, issuing what he called a "declaration to protect Spring Festival."

"More and more people, especially the young, have no time to consider the true meaning of the festival and prefer to celebrate the game-like revelry of Western holidays like Christmas and Valentine's Day," he wrote.