October 25, 2024 | Vol. 53, Issue 20

The only bilingual Chinese-English Newspaper in New England

“Lucky at Home”: Lunar New Year 2021

Jacqueline Church is the owner of Boston Chinatown Tours and a freelance writer

Lunar New Year is typically a time for huge family banquets. Restaurants would see multi-generational tables, lai see or hong bao passed to children, auspicious foods ordered, and lots of laughter. Lots of food. 

Like so many other aspects of life during this pandemic, we’re planning more isolated, home-based events. Here are 8 great ideas for making your Lunar New Year as festive and delicious as possible, while staying safe at home.

  1. Order takeaway from your favorite spots. All or part of the lucky menu can be ordered, from dumplings, to whole fish, to longevity noodles.
  2. Decorate your home with red paper cutouts, couplets, paper lanterns, and bowls of gold coins (candies). Essex Corner (50 Essex St.) has an excellent selection! Also, check out Delight Corner on Oxford St. (under Taiwan Café, behind China King.)
  3. Place a bowl or plate of mandarins, tangerines on your table. The color and name sound like gold and the leaves symbolize new growth/opportunity. Some children find a beautiful mandarin at their bedside in the morning. 
  4. Jade Garden (Tyler St.) has excellent Cantonese seafood, a whole steamed fish or Lobster with ginger and scallion, which would both bring luck. 
  5. If you’d rather cook at home: check out Happy Family Seafood Market on Hudson St. Beautiful fresh seafood in this small, family-owned shop.
  6. Don’t forget to pick up your 福(fu) symbol to hang on your door. (hung upside down in Mandarin speaking households because “upside down” and “arrive” are homophones. Cantonese speaking households hang right side up.
  7. 年糕 (Nian Gao) – is a glutinous rice cake most popular at this time of year. Many like it best when slices are pan-fried. Ho Yuen (Beach St.) has reopened and sells lovely small ones about the size of a bagel or cupcake.
  8. On New Year’s Day itself, vegetarian dishes are eaten (no ‘taking a life’ on that most important day) My Thai Vegan (Beach St. above Pho Pasteur) has many options.

Jacqueline Church is the owner of Boston Chinatown Tours, a freelance writer, and an advocate for Chinatown. See her articles in Edible Boston, Food & Wine, and more. Look for her contributions to the acclaimed Coronavirus: Chinatown Stories

To read this article in Chinese (Traditional), please click here.

Related articles

Betting on an Alternative: How Boston is Helping to Alleviate the Problem of Gambling in the Asian-American Community

Gambling has long been a problem in Asian American communities. A 2019 report by UMass Boston researchers, funded by the state and led by Institute for Asian American Studies researcher Dr. Carolyn Wong, featured interviews with approximately two dozen low-wage workers and retirees from Chinatown’s food and service industries. Recurring themes in their narratives revolved around “isolated lives in linguistically isolated neighborhoods,” a sameness to their jobs, and seemingly no healthier or more easily accessible alternatives for stress relief than […]

Councilor Ed Flynn addresses concerns in Boston Public Schools panel

BPS Panel on concerns of the AAPI community

Councilor Ed Flynn hosted a panel discussion with Superintendent Brenda Cassellius to address the concerns with the immigrant Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in regards to Boston Public Schools (BPS). This discussion provided a long-awaited platform for AAPI educators to express their concerns while sharing their vision for an inclusive and anti-racist education structure.  Given the Boston AAPI community’s long history of being silenced and unheard within the system, Ed Flynn, District 2 councilor, reasserted that, “our Asian community […]

404 Not Found

404 Not Found


nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)