WISHES

During the first fifteen days of the Chinese Lunar New Year, the Chinese like to go to the temples to make their wishes for the year. In a way, it is similar to the western concept of new year resolutions. The main difference is that the Chinese call upon the divine beings to help them realise their wishes.

I could see a lot of different ways for making wishes besides the Taoist and Buddhist methods that many are familiar with there are also those borrowed from Japanese Lunar New Year traditions being introduced at the Kuan Yin Temple in Gunung Rapat.

The one common factor is that all the methods involved writing down the wishes onto pieces of paper first. Then the "wisher" can paste the paper on to a candle, put it inside a container and placed on the altar of the Buddha, tied to two oranges and flung up a tree and hung up or placed into special containers.

The person then hopes that they will receive the blessings from the divine beings and their wishes will be granted. In a way, I think this has a psychological factor to it. It might be a way of psyching the person to work towards actualising their wishes.