Gung Hei Fat Choi!

[nostatic]

Happy Year of the Rat! Hope you get lots of red packets.

A Rat Year is a time of hard work, activity, and renewal. This is a good year to begin a new job, get married, launch a product or make a fresh start. Ventures begun now may not yield fast returns, but opportunities will come for people who are well prepared and resourceful. The best way for you to succeed is to be patient, let things develop slowly, and make the most of every opening you can find. People born in an Earth Rat are said to be logical realists, shrewd, charming, ambitious, and inventive. Of course, the entire horoscope must be considered when making any personality assessment.

In Chinese, the Rat is respected and considered a courageous, enterprising person. People born in the Year of Rat are clever and bright, sociable and family-minded. They have broad interests and strong ability in adapting to the environment and able to react adequately to any changes.

They are gifted in many ways and have an easy going manner. They are active and pleasant, tactful and fantastic, and are able to grasp opportunities. They seem to have interests in everything and hope to participate in doing it and usually do it very well.

[Paul_Heery]

At work today, they provided us with Chinese food for lunch. That was a nice gesture. However, the food was less than appealing. The problem is that ALL of our Chinese chefs are off today.

Gung Hei Fat Choi!

[frogger]

Mmm, rats.

[charleskieffner]

rats a ruck!

[stevepaa]

Sent the red packets to my children and my brother's children.

[911Rob]

Originally Posted by nostatic

...... People born in the Year of Rat are clever and bright, sociable and family-minded. They have broad interests and strong ability in adapting to the environment and able to react adequately to any changes......

Well, Thank-you.

Happy New Year to you too!

[svandamme]

I'm a Dragon, i like Rats, i like Monkey's too
this year is going to rock the house

[Noah930]

gung hei faat choi

sun leen faai lohk

Dad's birthday is 4 days into the new year. It was always a pain to figure out what that translated to on the Western calendar. He's a rat, too.

[M.D. Holloway]

Red Packets? Wad id dat?

[The Gaijin]

恭喜發財

Gōngxi fācái

[The Gaijin]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

Red Packets? Wad id dat?

Traditionally, Red envelopes or red packets (Cantonese: lai shi or lai see) (利是, 利市 or 利事); (Mandarin: 'hóng bāo' (紅包); Hokkien: 'ang pow' (POJ: âng-pau); Hakka: 'fung bao'; are passed out during the Chinese New Year's celebrations, from married couples or the elderly to unmarried juniors. It is common for adults to give red packets to children. Red packets are also known as 壓歲錢/压岁钱 (Ya Sui Qian, which was evolved from 壓祟錢/压祟钱, literally, the money used to suppress or put down the evil spirit ) during this period.

Red envelopes always contain money, usually varying from a couple of dollars to several hundred. The amount of money in the red packets should be of even numbers, as odd numbers are associated with cash given during funerals (帛金 : Bai Jin). Since the number 4 is considered bad luck, because the word for four is a homophone for death, money in the red envelopes never adds up to $4. However, the number 8 is considered lucky (for its homophone for "wealth"), and $8 is commonly found in the red envelopes. Sometimes chocolate coins are found in the red packets.

Odd and even numbers are determined by the first digit, rather than the last. Thirty and fifty, for example, are odd numbers, and are thus appropriate as funeral cash gifts. However, it is common and quite acceptable to have cash gifts in a red packet using a single bank note — with ten or fifty yuan bills used frequently.

The act of requesting for red packets is normally called (Mandarin): 討紅包, 要利是. (Cantonese):逗利是. A married person would not turn down such request as it would mean that he or she would be "out of luck" in the new year (無利是).

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by The Gaijin

恭喜發財

Gōngxi fācái

Now the spelling makes sense to me. Todd, was that Cantonese or ???

Gōngxi Gōngxi. We're celebrating by having hot pot this weekend.

[nostatic]

Cantonese. My g/f's influence. She wants me to learn it because her Mandarin isn't so good. I keep saying, "too many tones!"

[svandamme]

i'm stuck at
ni hau ! one #87 please, to go

[Komenda Fan]

My school is likely a third chinese, and lots of kids came today dressed in traditional chinese outfits. It was really cool to see.

[HardDrive]

I am registering a new LLC in the new 2 weeks. Let us hope this is a good year for new beginnings.

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by The Gaijin

Sometimes chocolate coins are found in the red packets.

Never received that, myself. Perhaps they were for the Chinese-Jewish kids.

[Don Plumley]

Good Fortune and Prosperity!

[Sapporo Guy]

http://pages.infinit.net/garrick/chinese/

The page is old but it provides all the basic information for each of the 12 animals without all the advertisments.

lolo, I'm a cock!

The red packets are "New Years Money". Basically, for us western folks ... Christmas presents. The kids here in SonyLand get royally screwed at X-mas time but when New Years roles around (coincides with the Western one) the kids make out like bandits. Anywhere from $150 ~ $1k ... the larger the family the larger the prosperity.

However, what comes around goes around

[911Rob]

Originally Posted by The Gaijin

恭喜發財

Gōngxi fācái

Well, same to you!

Happy New Year Sapp!!!