BEGINNING OF SPRING

February 4th is "lup chun" day. Lup chun which is Cantonese means the start of spring. Where Feng Shui is concerned, the Rat year begins at 7.03 a.m. on February 4th and not 12.00 midnight on 7th February.

Chinese New Year day is according to the lunar calendar whereas Feng Shui refers to the Hsia calendar. Anyway, don't worry too much about these two different ways of calculating. You just need to remember that Lup Chun would mostly fall on the 4th of February each year. There are a few years when it starts on the 5th of February.

Since spring begins before the start of the lunar new year or spring festival (as it is called in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong), this would mean that the rat year has no spring. From what I have read and heard from Feng Shui masters, a missing lup chun in a year would indicate that there would be problems in growth and development for the year. One way to counter this is to give the effect of spring by having lots of plants in the house during the new year. This would indicate that spring is here. Some households would stick red papers with the character "spring" everywhere to indicate the arrival of this season.

In my family, there is no cause for fear where inducing spring is concerned as my mum makes it a point to buy lots of auspicious plants to decorate the house for this festive season. In her case I think it is more for aesthetics and the festive feel than anything else.

The practice of buying auspicious plants for their homes is done by many, many Chinese. I think this kiasu (this is a Hokkien phrase meaning "fear of losing") trait is inherent in many Chinese. It is this fear of not being ahead which drives them to subscribe to all sorts of ways and methods to induce, maximise and retain wealth.

This morning, I brought my mum to a few of the nurseries in Ipoh to look for potted Chrysanthemums to decorate our house. She had earlier bought a big pot of Kumquat plant from her regular supplier.

The colourful flowers that we saw at each of the nurseries were really a feast for the eyes. The plants pictured above are all considered to be very auspicious and would bring wealth luck. They were so beautiful that the shutterbug in me couldn't stop clicking away. With my big sun hat, I was walking around the place and happily snapping whichever plant that caught my fancy. I knew there were a few people staring at me but I told myself, "Let them stare all they want as long as I get to take the photos I want". Ei, maybe they think that I am some Japanese or Korean tourist on a visit and that is why the stares. Kee! Kee! Kee! But jokes aside, I have been mistaken for a foreigner many, many times. Top on the list is Japanese. I wonder why?