- Title: SOUTH KOREA / MALAYSIA: LUNAR NEW YEAR HERALDS CHINESE YEAR OF GOLDEN MONKEY
- Date: 20th January 2004
- Summary: (L!3) SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (JANUARY 21, 2004) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Korean) PERFORMER KIM MI-JUNG SAYING: "Monkeys are always diligent, quick, attentive to detail and live by paying attention to its surroundings. Since this year is the year of the monkey, I hope people, just like the monkey, live diligently and have a good year."
- Embargoed: 4th February 2004 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TAIPEI, TAIWAN/ SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA/ KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
- City:
- Country: Korea, Republic of Malaysia
- Topics: Quirky,People
- Reuters ID: LVA2HPS8TDBEIEB9HDFEO4JHSAZO
- Story Text: Lunar New Year heralds monkey business worldwide.
Money, money and more money - this, according to most Chinese, is what the new year will be all about.
According to the Chinese New Year calendar, it is not just the year of the monkey but the year of the Golden monkey believed to bring in money and wealth.
The word for Monkey in the Chinese language is ' Yuan Ho', which sounds similar to the word for 'resources' which is interpreted as rich resources meaning more money during the year.
Posters and lanterns with images of monkeys were being snapped up at a local market in Taipei as residents gear up for the biggest festival of the year.
"This is the year of golden monkey, putting some golden and shining colour in the house will help you to get rich in the coming year," said shopkeeper Chun Shay-hong.
In Malaysia, members of the Chinese community are taking a break from their businesses to celebrate the new year.
Kuala Lumpur and other major cities in Malaysia are festooned with Chinese lanterns and other decorations for the festivities.
Malaysia has declared two public holidays and most businesses will be closed and cities deserted as everyone returns to their hometowns to celebrate.
The hectic pace of life during the festivities is not lost on Chinese feng shui or geomancy expert Master Lau Soon Heng. "This year of the Monkey will be fast-paced and fluid, with the force of momemtum at its maximum. If we can control it well, the year of the Monkey will spell a year of prosperity and great achievement," Master Lau said.
Feng shui is a Chinese art of positioning objects, buildings and furniture to maximise positive energy.
For most South Koreans, the new year was ushered in not with monkey posters or figurines, but real live monkeys.
On Tuesday (January 20), albino monkeys flown in from Africa performed traditional Korean games and dances for dozens of excited South Korean children.
The monkeys were fitted with bright coloured traditional Korean costume called hanbok (pronounced hahn-bok). A Hanbok is usually worn during Korean thanksgiving and new year holidays.
Chinese soothsayers predict the Year of the Monkey will bring a stock market boom, a freer yuan currency -- and a hefty dose of political chaos.
Like the temperamental animal from which the Lunar New Year starting on Thursday borrows its sign, 2004 will keep everyone on their toes with revolution and change, they say.
Brought to mankind by a mythical horse and tortoise, the Chinese fortune-telling system codified in the "Book of Changes" or "I Ching" was banned as heretical and nearly stamped out during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution.
But defiant devotees on the mainland and millions of followers around the world have kept alive the ancient art, making the 12-year animal cycle as mainstream as Chinese takeout.
Other practitioners say the Year of the Monkey would propel Chinese economic growth and may bring political chaos to Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
The war of words between China and Taiwan, the democratic island considered a renegade province by the mainland, is said to remain just that.
Others predict world stock markets would boom by the second half of the year and Chinese officials would widen the trading band for the yuan currency by summer.
Experts said U.S. President George W. Bush, born in the Year of the Dog in 1946, faced a difficult re-election campaign in 2004 even after the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Tension in the troubled Middle East would lower slightly owing to a mild dose of luck from the East, practitioners said, though the Monkey year was synonymous with hidden dangers. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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