Happy new year for the Chinese community across the globe.
I would like to convey my wish for prosperity and luck throughout the year.
The year of the Ox will start on next Monday, 26 January 2009.
The Chinese New Year has become a national holiday in Indonesia since 2003.
Indonesians commonly mention this new year as ‘IMLEK’.
‘Imlek’ comes from Hokkian dialect.
It means ‘lunar calendar’ or ‘yinli’ in Mandarin language.
‘Imlek’ celebration relates to ‘Angpao’ [Hokkian] or ‘HongBao’ [Mandarin], which means a red envelope ['hong' = red, 'bao' = envelope].
The red envelopes contained money will be usually given to kids during Chinese New Year.
Kids love ”angpao’…
So do we, don’t we?
Common expressions for Chinese New Year:
‘Xin Nian Kuai Le’ = Happy New Year
‘Chun Jie Kuai Le’ = Happy Chinese New Year
‘Gong Xi Fa Cai’ = Wishing you prosperity
‘Wan Shi Ru Yi’ = May everything be successful
and don’t forget another ‘magic’ phrase to end the above phrases is…
‘hong bao na lai’… which means give me the angpao!
Happy New Year once again…
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