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Good fortune, health for Lunar New Year!

It will be a busy weekend with Valentine’s Day and coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

But Sunday will usher in the Lunar New Year – or Spring Festival!

And my family and I want to wish you the best, as well as excellent health and good fortune for the Year of the Tiger!

Many ethnic Chinese families celebrate in various ways – but feasts, the wearing of lucky red and the passing out of lucky red envelopes – “hong bao” – with some money to kids in the family are common traditions.

On Saturday, a large celebration will take place in Seattle’s International District, near the Chinatown Gate and Hing Hay Park.

You’ll see Lunar New Year celebrations in Southern China, Hong Kong and other places in the world marked with lion dances – which help chase away bad spirits and bring good fortune.

The lion head in the photograph above has been in our family for over 30 years. My mom bought it in San Francisco Chinatown decades ago.

As a kid in suburban California, I would bring it to school, plant it on my head and lead the Lunar New Year parade around to different classrooms.

I view Lunar New Year as another time to celebrate with my family and to wish others a better and more prosperous future filled with great health.

It’s pretty simple.

It’s also a nice time to greet old friends – especially elders – with kindness and respect.

You’ll hear about many different ways to celebrate. Fireworks are pretty popular – and legend has it that they are one way to scare off bad spirits.

In my family, which calls the Chinese province of Guangdong as our ancestral homeland, we stack oranges one on top of each other.

My wife says that stacking oranges can be pronounced in Mandarin Chinese as “tuan ju” – or being together with family.

In the photograph above, I stacked eight oranges because that number, which is pronounced as “ba” in Mandarin, symbolizes good luck.

With younger members of the family – and ones who are not married – we give lucky red envelopes.

The “hong bao” have some money to start the Lunar New Year off with something in your pocket.

The Chinese characters on this “hong bao” are pronounced in Mandarin Chinese as “wan shi ru yi” – which means “all your dreams come true.”

Different envelopes have different Chinese characters. Many have the character of “fu” – which stands for good fortune.

Yes, preparing a feast is part of the big celebration.

My wife prepared some fried shrimp for one of our meals. We plan to eat well in the coming days, too.

My wife also bought some Shanghai rice cake – or “nian gao” – which is pictured below.

This refers to a Lunar New Year phrase of “yi nian bi yi nian gao” or “each year will be better.”

There will be topics to debate and issues to analyze in the near future.

But please, enjoy this holiday.

I forgot to say: You also can watch the televised Lunar Festival from China.