Presents!

Just like in our Christmas tradition you also get presents during Chinese New Year here. The good thing for me is that it is not restricted to the members of the family but to anyone who visits a family during the CNY period (which extends over two weeks). This is what you get:

It's called hong bao (red envelope (the one above might not be a great example for the name...)) and it contains money (depending on how close you are to the family and how rich they are I guess...). It is amazing how literally EVERYONE gets these. I mean, even I got two so far and I am usually a complete strager to the families of my friends. By the way, the one above shows all the chinese horoscope signs in the right order in case you ever feel the urge to recite them. 

This is another very pretty hong bao (I can almost live from this envelope business at this point...).

If you want to get one of these there is something you must do, though: bring two mandarines (or even better, FOUR, as i learned today). For some reason they keep calling them oranges but I have realised by now that in reality it's mandarines. Handing them over to the family is symbolic for giving them good fortune. But don't you worry! You'll get back another two mandarines (they also want to give you good fortune, of course!). 

And if you're lucky they'll come in those fancy bags:

Usually you will be offered CNY candy and all sorts of things on top of everything, so if you have any chinese friends near you this is definitely the time for a visit!