Chinese New Year

Just like a mom to all her children, I want to be fair to all my art works. But I have to admit there are times that I could not be a fair mom. The arrangement I made last Saturday was one of them. After I took it home and set it up on the sofa table, I could not take my eyes away from it. It put me into the Chinese New Year festive mood, especially, the red color from the Mickey Mouse anthurium brought me the memories of my childhood about Chinese New Year.

I was born and grown up in Beijing at the foot of Bell and Drum Towers. The district is considered as part of the very traditional “old” town. There were red color everywhere in the city. There are red walls of the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, and many other imperial gardens and buildings. There were many red decorations used in the daily life – red lanterns, couplets on door (门联), spring festival couplets (春联), paper cuts (剪纸) pasted on window and so on. Around the Chinese New Year time, women were on their new dresses, which were red. At the shops and the markets, everything was wrapped with red paper or in red package. People gave and received red envelops. The tiny red pieces from fireworks were everywhere on the ground.

The red, especially Chinese red, has been a very important color in Chinese cultural. It is the color of auspicious and jubilation. The Chinese red is used for all happy occasions, especially for wedding.
The Chinese red was one of the few colors used since ancient times. The color was made from the powder of mineral cinnabar (mercuric sulfide). It was believed that China was the country had pure cinnabar; therefore the color was named Chinese red. It was very widely used in traditional Chinese art forms, especially folk arts. The Chinese red color has been used in Chinese traditional art forms, like painting, the use of it has been carried on to the generations and Chinese Red became part of the Chinese cultural.
Wish you enjoyed the arrangement, Happy Chinese New Year and happy Monday!

In Friendship through Flowers,
Yirou.
(2-16-2007)

本文有中文版。