World Children's Story Classics: Family Stories

Chapter 66 "New Year's Money"

In our country, every New Year, adults always give some coins to children, which is called "lucky money".Why is there this custom?

It turns out that the three characters "New Year's money" should have been written as "pressing money", which means exorcising demons and suppressing evil spirits.On New Year's Eve, after the New Year's Eve dinner, the elders of the family will hang copper coins threaded with red thread on the child's chest. The number of copper coins is the same as the age of the child.Because "Sui" and "Sui" have the same pronunciation, pressing "Sui" means "suppression", so folks believe that doing so can suppress evil and drive away ghosts.

Until now, the custom of giving lucky money during Chinese New Year is still very popular, but it has no meaning of suppressing evil spirits.

(End of this chapter)