Seeing red...

Today's (short) blog is being written just before midnight... just before we ethnic Chinese usher in the Year of the Dragon. There will be "last-minuters" (like me!) who will be busy packing "angpow" packets.

One helpful website has shed some light on this traditional practice...

The "angpow” (as rendered in Hokkien, see below) is a red packet that is given out from married couples or senior folk to unmarried juniors. Usually, it is distributed during Chinese New Year and the money inside symbolises blessing.

Angpow in Mandarin/dialects and their implicit meanings:

Mandarin: ‘hóng bāo’ 红包
Hokkien: ang pow

Cantonese: Lai Shi or Lay See (利是, literally means “good luck”, 利市 or 利事)

Hakka: fung bao

The development of design of “angpow” packets

The tradition of giving “angpow” packets existed since long ago in China. People then used to write idioms offering blessing on red paper to friends and relatives. Red symbolises “propitious” or “auspicious” fortune in Chinese culture.

About 300 years ago, people started using packets with coins inside rather than paper. The first modern-day angpow became well established with printing technology from around 1900. The design carried "blessing" idioms and/or characters and Chinese New Year themed graphics such as the pertinent Chinese Zodiac animal, ie, the Dragon in the case of this year.

(Source: Nanyang Arts Ensemble, Nanyang Technological University.)

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Here's one angpow packet I particularly like:

("Huat" in Hokkien means "prosperity".)
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I thought the Singapore Zoo had gone off the rails with this ad, which I posted yesterday...

How can a zoo use the tag line "Walk Among Real Dragons"? There aren't any. The Komodo and Bearded dragons depicted are lizards! Then, The Sunday Times' Lifestyle section (22 Jan, page 2) carried this picture/caption:

It's enough to make Puff the Magic Dragon cry.