The "red" Chinese New Year The "red" Chinese New Year: "Chinanews, Xi'an, Jan. 23 (By Lie Wei) - Red underwear, red socks, red waistband...following the imminent arrival of Chinese New Year, festival merchandise with red as the color of the year of one's fate has become the hottest selling items of the season. In the ancient capital of Xi'an, many of the youngest generation who pursue beauty at all costs unwittingly transform the 'red of a fateful year' that is supposed to chase away evils into a new way to welcome the season, just like Westerns needing to 'plant' Christmas trees and wear Christmas hats for Christmas.

Every descendant of Chinese heritage knows clearly that once every twelve years the Chinese zodiac of the year in which they were born would come up and that year would be the 'year of fate'. Folk wisdom has it that one would run into many unfavorable turns during one's 'year of fate' and these can only be resolved through a lot of rituals. Therefore, 'year of fate' people have to wear red waistbands, red clothes to ward off evils and pray for favorable omens.

Would you like to wear such clothes? Men's underwear in pure red have the word 'Prosperity' or 'Wealth' printed on them. They look propitious and the words read like names of puppies and make people laugh. Women's underwear have prints of different pictures of lovely fortune dolls; their all-red packing bags have propitious phrases like 'good luck every year' or 'peace is blessing' printed on them.

Many young women spend time and effort to turn this ritual into a way of welcoming the Spring Festival holidays. In the blistering wind, they put on fashionable red overcoat, wrap themselves in a red scarf, red gloves and red shawl and show themselves walking in the snow. Fashion is fickle like the wind. For these young ladies, although they are skeptical about 'year of fate', they follow customs of the older generation for fun and games, with beauty to boot."  ¶ 10:59 PM