Chinese New Year Mandarin Tree

Chinese new year cny or spring festival or lunar new year has a rich history behind it.

Chinese new year mandarin tree. It is traditional to place mandarin oranges along with a red envelope next to children s pillows in every chinese household to bring them good fortune. I looked forward to the arrival of the big mandarin orange trees in the weeks prior to chinese new year when we lived in hong kong these gorgeous trees graced the doorways of the lobby entrance to our home at four seasons hotel hong kong and pretty much every major storefront around the city. The tangerine is a group of orange coloured citrus fruit consisting of hybrids of mandarin orange.

Bamboo is just one of the new year trees for the cantonese the others being mandarin and peach. Calamansi is thought to be a hybrid between the kumquat c. 1 the fruit is high in vitamin c and its juice is a popular drink.

It is commonly called kat cai 吉子 meaning small auspice but during chinese new year season nurseries give them a special name called four seasons lime. 吉 standing for good luck. In cantonese the new year tree is called nin fa chinese.

The mandarin orange citrus reticulata also known as the mandarin or mandarine is a small citrus tree with fruit resembling other oranges usually eaten plain or in fruit salads. The peach flower stands for good. As hong kong strides into a new lunar year the city fills up with mandarin oranges.

2 origin and distribution mandarin oranges are native to the tropical and sub tropical regions of asia. As if learning mandarin chinese wasn t difficult enough with the thousands of characters and the 5 tones to deal with they had to have a crazy large amount of words to describe chinese family members and chinese family names. Round objects and gold objects are often considered lucky in china but citrus are particularly prized and are often used in chinese new year celebrations.

Whether it s making chinese dumplings learning the gong xi gong xi song making hong bao red packets or writing greeting cards your kids will love them. For a fun celebration try these chinese new year activities with your kids. 年花 literally new year flower.