Calligraphy for the New Year

Wednesday our Chinese teachers took us to their university so we could learn about the Chinese New Year. We learned about traditions, superstitions, and the story of Chinese New Year. One tradition is giving 紅包 (red envelopes) to children and elderly. The 紅包 have money inside! There are also some pretty interesting superstitions, for example if you pick up a 紅吧 off the street and take the money inside you’ll marry a ghost bride. You mustn’t sweep or you’ll sweep out the luck. If one argues, cries, or borrows money on New Year’s Day they will be doing it the rest of the year. But what we spent the most on was calligraphy. Hinder calligraphy is really difficult! We only learned two characters but they took quite a while. The first character we learned was 春 which means something like “prosperity.” The second was 福 meaning “blessing.” Both are very traditional for decorations. Although it was difficult we enjoyed ourselves. I think we got very lucky with our teachers. Even though they are still learning how to be teachers they are very fun and they are as interested in us as we are in them.
Thanks for reading,
Autumn 丁晚秋