📍Lunar New Year Wishing Fountain🧧🍭💵
Happy Lunar New Year everyone! With the Year of the Tiger right around the corner, comes with many customs and traditions along with it. And, one of the sweetest traditions is the candy treasure box. This box of delicacies, is used for hospitality. For when guests and family visit over the course of Lunar New Year. The containers (boxes), traditionally come with compartments of 6 or 8. As they are auspicious numbers in Chinese, but nowadays you can find ones with more.
As what to put in the box, there is no defined rules. You can add sweets that you like. For example, I added candied yams. As another purpose of this box, is to wish your loved ones a "sweet" good beginning to the year. Although, Chinese people do love word play. Thus, you can expect that the items that are put into these boxes to have a twist to them. After all, you are offering this to your family and friends. So, with the word play meanings, it's like giving them your best wishes for the year. One of the items, that one almost always sees, is the Red Melon Seeds. This is due to the word "seed" in Chinese, which is "子“ (Zi) being the same word that is for offspring. The only difference is the Chinese character, that comes before Zi, which is used to define the nature of it. Along with the auspicious color red, the meaning of the Red Melon seeds. Is to wish, for your guest and or family, best wishes in their fertility journey. So that they may add new members to their family, in the upcoming year.
Similarly, lotus seeds also have the same meaning, due to the word seed. But, the only difference is due to the character change that precedes it. Lotus "莲“ (Lian), sounds like the Chinese word for continuous. This snack is to wish for continuous fertility. A perfect snack for those who have had a child already and is looking to have another one.
Next up we have candied Coconut and Winter Melon. The Chinese words for coconut sounds like grandfather “爷” (Ye) and grandson (zi). This snack is a snack that wishes for one's families' continuous luck and health to have three generations, unified together. And now we've arrived at my personal favorite, Candied Winter Melon. This snack is linked to the saying "好頭好尾" (A good beginning and a good end). This is to wish businessmen to have a good beginning and a good end in the upcoming year. Thus, wishing them prosperity in their ventures. This can also apply to those who don't have a business.
The next snack, is one that is relatively rare. As it depends on the region that one is from. A lot of Taishanese people have these in their candy boxes or homes during Lunar New Year. This is due to the dumpling shape of the snack resembling a "Yuan Bao," ingot of gold. Which is a form of currency during the dynasties. This snack is to wish for one's financial abundance in the upcoming year. Just imagine eating an ingot of gold!
Lastly, we have the Gold chocolate coins and Peanut candy. The Gold coins is explainable as it is the same as the Crispy Yuan Bao. It is to wish for a financially abundant year. Now, traditionally, you will also see a lot of nuts in these candy boxes as well. Such nuts are cashews and pistachios. This is because cashews look like ingots and pistachios have the name "Happy fruit" in Chinese. But having peanut candy and or eating peanuts is said to aid one's luck in finding a mate this upcoming year. This is said to be true by many famous fortune tellers in Hong Kong. So, for you single and ready to mingle folks remember to eat more peanuts. Other nuts such as walnuts also work. And, there you have it, now you're ready to make a box of your own. Best wishes from my family to yours.
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