Eve Kushner - Thursday, January 22, 2009

For Westerners, New Year's is a time to paint the town red, figuratively speaking. But for the Chinese who observe Lunar New Year, painting and the color red are literally part of the celebration. In Chinese culture, red is the most favorable color because people associate it with prosperity and joy. And as for painting, Chinese people take brush to paper to record wishes for the coming year, then hang these papers in their houses. Artistic types paint what they wish for or paint auspicious objects, such as kumquats, mandarin oranges and peach blossoms.

On Sunday at the Oakland Museum of California's annual Lunar New Year celebration - one day in advance of the official start of the Year of the Ox - artist Pauline Tsui will show you how it's done. To demonstrate Chinese brush painting, she will paint traditionally positive symbols: bamboo, plum blossoms, orchids and chrysanthemums.

"The act of painting these auspicious symbols is my way of conveying good wishes to everyone for the new year," says Tsui. Bamboo, for example, represents peace and integrity, and people customarily burned it so that the crackling sound would "drive away the past and the not-so-good things and bring in the new."

Spotted here