Happy New Year! 新年快樂! (San Nin Fai Lok)

Chinese New Year is the most important festival in the Chinese calendar, and there’s a lot of symbolism in various aspects of the celebration.  For example, a fish dish at the end of the New Year’s Eve meal is as traditional as the Christmas dinner that finishes with a plum pudding containing silver coins.  But I think the Chinese fish dish has more symbolism.

The Chinese word for fish, yu, sounds like the words for both `wish’ and `abundance’, so a fish served at the end of the New Year's Eve meal symbolizes a wish for abundance in the coming year. The fish is served whole, with head and tail attached, symbolizing a good beginning and ending for the coming year.

Personally, I don’t wish for abundance for me, but I do pray that in the year ahead there will be an abundance of funds so that we may do abundantly more than we have done in the past to help orphaned and disabled children.

I hope you watch the video below and be encouraged by the happy faces of children whose lives have been changed as a result of your generous support.  The children are shouting Happy Birthday to celebrate Christian Action’s recent 25^th Anniversary.

From my family and the staff of Christian Action to each one of you readers, who I count as friends:  Happy New Year! 新年快樂!

PS:  Giving is also a Chinese New Year tradition, so please remember it’s not too late to hit the Donate button to send a traditional (laisee packet) gift to one or more children in our Homes in Qinghai!  Thank you!