While the Lunar New Year is filled with many practices that can be observed by people from any race, religion or creed (such as house visiting, exchanging gifts of oranges and red packets), there are also some religious practices associated with the festival, such as the currying favour from the Kitchen God, and, as chinatownboy writes about, the changing of the altars.


The Kitchen God tradition is one you may have heard about. Before the Lunar New Year, the Kitchen God makes his rounds through the kitchen and prepares to make his report to the celestial emperor. In order to get a favourable review, families leave offerings of nian gao, a sweet, sticky rice cake either to get a ‘sweet’ review, or to gum his mouth shut!

chinatownboy blogs about the changing of the altar:

Exposed to the natural elements of wind, dust, rain and sun, these small altars often hung on to the wall by a nail, get worn out by the end of the year. And so, on an auspicious date, we will change the altar.

There are many kinds of altars to choose from. From the simple to the elaborate. Some of these are made from recycled material. Ah, in the poor days, they made sense. (^^)

You can read about the current practices of some of these traditions in his post here.