The Lunar Chinese New Year has been considered as the most important festival celebration of the year. It's also the time to cheer one another up by "chasing the bad away" using fireworks. Fire crackers have been deemed as the most auspicious tools to scare the bad omens away. Therefore, almost every family will light up the fireworks to their hearts' delight until recent times when the government are getting very cautious about the control of the content inside these fire crackers.

Talking about "chasing the bad away," it's also a very significant festival ceremony during the few days before the arrival of the Lunar Chinese New Year for every household to do the "Big Clean and Cleanse" to their homes to the effect that all those negative things called bad luck experienced in the year that is soon to expire will be chased away, creating the vacuum to absorb all the new and positive energies the New Year will bring. This is the reason for the "Burning Rituals" so often seen everywhere because when the fire is lit, fresh air in that atmosphere will be sucked in to replace that which existed before, thus creating a new set of energetic environment.

It's also very customary to hang auspicious affirmations called "Fai-chun" all around the house such that positive and auspicious words can be seen everywhere one goes. So, subliminal suggestions are not at all new to the Chinese culture indeed!

For 2008 the year of the Rat, people will do these same things again just as they do for all other years. However, since the "rat" zodiac sign is of the element of "water," and the auspicious stars are upon the East and South East directions, all the "red" things that are part of the festival celebration will be put in these directions - things like red flowers, red pots, red "lucky envelopes," red "fai-chun," red lantern, etc...

These particular arrangements are suggested in accordance with the "flow of stars" of the year of the rat. It's believed that these suggestions, when done right, will often help bring forth "good luck" for the whole family and therefore people follow them religiously.

Today being the first day of "2008 the year of the Rat," everywhere we go we can see people giving out "Red Pocket of Lucky Money" to others so as to wish them "wealth" and "prosperity" with this symbolic gestures.

This is one of the many gestures that have been carried on for thousands of years. They're very good examples to show that among the many traditions as dictated by the Chinese culture, symbolic significance carries much weight in almost all things that people do - especially at such time as Chinese New Year...

Another thing about this Chinese new year celebration is that it can be very easily seen that the Chinese actually are very conscious of the power of the subconscious mind, and that's why at the beginning of every year, they will make sure to say, hear, see, and touch everything that is symbolic of positivity in terms of positive affirmations expressed by various means.