Moral & Rituals
Nian Gao sounds similar to Nian Gao年高 (年年高生) implying promotions or prosperity year after year. This association makes Nian Gao a popular gift item during the New Year period.
On the more human level, Nian Gao are popular as gifts during the Chinese New Year. The traditional Nian Gao is round with a auspicious decoration such as the character for prosperity on its top.The character is often written in the traditional Chinese script.
Maybe you may think having Nian Gao during these ages in Chinese New Year is old-fashionable .However the market has gradually changed and caught up with the taste of the new generation of customers.
As a gift item, Nian Gao are fashioned into different shapes with attractive packaging to suit the festivee season. Popular designs include a pair of carps(年年有余) symbolizing surplus every year,ingots (元宝), or the God of Wealth财神. These designs are auspicious symbols and sends good wishes for the New Year.
Some innovative producers have added a scratch area for consumers to reveal a lucky number for lottery bets. The production, sales and consumption of Nian Gao is another evidence of food as a transmission medium for social aspirations and how it can be shaped, packaged and promoted in varying forms to resonate with consumer’s social dreams.
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Famous quotes containing the words moral and/or rituals:
“All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of the words by which they are expressed, or to attend to their literal instead of their metaphorical sense. They are already supernatural philosophy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority ... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our “white mythology.” Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.”
—Ihab Hassan (b. 1925)