Metal-Dome

Days before the New Year, every family is busy giving its house a thorough cleaning, hoping to sweep away all the ill fortune to make way for the in-coming good luck. People also give their doors and windowpanes a new coat of paint, usually red in color. They decorate the doors and windows with paper-cuts and couplets with the very popular theme of “happiness”,”wealth”,”longevity” and “satisfactory marriage with more children”.

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In Chinese, Laba means ‘gold eighth’ and refers to the traditional start of celebrations for the Chinese Lnuar New Year – the eighth day of the last lunar month.

On this day a special hot rice porridge, called Laba Zhou, which contains glutinous rice, red beans, millet, Chinese sorghum, peas and some other ingredients such as dried dates, chestnut meat, walnut meat, almond, peanut and dried lotus seeds is eaten. On the previous night, people will begin the preparation and stew the porridge at about midnight. It won’t give off an attractive smell until the next morning. The flavor varies from place to place, in the North, it is a dessert with sugar added; in the South,  salt and seasonal vegetables are put in.

 

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