Chinese New Year greetings: what to say, to whom, and the one everyone gets wrong

Gongxi is "congratulations," the word you say to someone who has just had a baby or passed an exam. Facai is "to strike it rich," built on the character for prosperity that has a page of its own here. Put together they congratulate you in advance on the money you are about to make, which is a very Cantonese way of being nice, and it is from Cantonese, through Hong Kong and the diaspora, that the phrase went global as kung hei fat choi. Northern China never took to it as a first greeting. Walk into a Beijing courtyard on the first morning and what you hear is guonian hao, "may you pass the year well," with prosperity left politely unmentioned.

Three things follow. First, it is not a translation of "happy new year," so if you want to say that, say xinnian kuaile, and if you want to say both, say them in that order. Second, to an elder it wants company: gongxi facai, shenti jiankang, "get rich, and be healthy," is the standard pairing, and health is the half they will hear. Third, there is a rhyme every Chinese child knows, gongxi facai, hongbao nalai, "congratulations, get rich, hand over the red envelope," and it is charming from a six-year-old with her palms out. From anyone old enough to have a job it is a demand, and the one greeting you must never say to your boss. What you give the boss instead is on the next table. What the envelope is, who gives it and how much goes in is on the red envelope page.

A note on the Hokkien column. Where it is blank, the phrase has no settled Hokkien form in the dictionaries; Hokkien speakers in Singapore and Penang say the Mandarin or Cantonese one, or simply kiong-hí, "congratulations," which does the work of the whole sentence. And a note on newlyweds: the traditional wish for a couple married within the year is zaosheng guizi, "may you soon have a son." It is still said, it is increasingly not welcome, and a wish for the couple's happiness is the safer gift.

Every year has a greeting that puns on its animal, and it is the one you will see on the most banners. For the Fire Goat year that begins February 6, 2027, it is 三阳开泰, sān yáng kāi tài, "three yang lines open the Tai hexagram": yang, "sun / positive," sounds like yang, "goat," so the Book of Changes’ good-omen hexagram becomes a Goat pun. The Goat year's pun is the deepest of the twelve, because it reaches into the Book of Changes: the hexagram Tai, three yang lines under three yin, is the ancient image of heaven and earth in communion and the first month of spring, and since yang sounds exactly like yang, "goat," three goats on a New Year card are three lines of the luckiest hexagram in the book. The full set, for whichever year you land in:

Saying it to the wrong year. "New year" in Chinese, xinnian, can mean January 1 as well as the lunar one. On a New Year card that arrives in the first week of January, xinnian kuaile is read as the Western holiday. If you mean the lunar festival and the date is ambiguous, say chunjie kuaile, "happy Spring Festival," or guonian hao, which only ever means the lunar one.

Wishing money on someone who wanted health. The older the listener, the less facai belongs at the front of the sentence. Lead with health, add long life, and if you want the prosperity wish put it last.

The child's rhyme. Hongbao nalai is for children. Adults who say it to a boss or an in-law have asked for money out loud, and the room will decide whether it was a joke.

Congratulating the bereaved. A household that has lost someone in the past year traditionally neither pays nor receives New Year calls, hangs no red, and does not want gongxi. A quiet wish for health, and an envelope only if you are family, is the register. The sixth-century Jingchu Suishiji already has the family greeting each other in order of age on the first morning; what it does not have is anyone greeting a house in mourning, and that silence is the custom.

Saying the unlucky thing. The season runs on sound-alikes, so anything that sounds like death, loss or breaking is talked around: a dropped bowl is answered with "peace year after year," because "shattered" sounds like "year," a bad hand of cards is not mentioned, and the number four stays out of greetings and envelopes alike. Conversely the lucky sound-alikes are the whole game, which is why fish is on every table (yu, "surplus") and a Rooster year is a great one for luck (ji, "chicken," sounds like ji, "auspicious").

On the eve, and formally. The Beijing almanac records that on New Year's Eve people in their best court dress went round to relatives and friends to "take leave of the year," that the family did the same to its own elders at home, and that a man married within the year had to make that call on his wife's parents or be thought disrespectful, a rule that a great many sons-in-law still observe without knowing they are quoting a Qing-dynasty book. From the first morning the greeting is bainian, "paying the year's respects," and it runs, with diminishing energy, to the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth. Our page on the sixteen days has each of them dated and explained, with the first-day greeting in its proper place, elders first.