CNY Chinese New Year Ang Pow Craft Lucky Eight

I enjoy doing art and craft with the kids. I guess it's me trying to connect with them in some ways. As they grow up, they are much more interested in their gadgets and books or Nerf guns and Lego and all those other boy stuff that I find we are spending less and less time with each other. Doing art is my rare moments with them when we can just sit down and work together and chat.

Since we are doing Chinese New Year decorations, the boys have lots of questions about the Chinese traditions and superstitions. I have to admit I don't know most of the answers so Google has been very helpful here.

As we were making the lucky number Eight wall decoration, the boys were asking me why the number eight and not any other number?

8 is considered the most auspicious number in Chinese culture. Number 8 is read as "ba" which sounds like "Fa" which means wealth and prosperity in Chinese. So the Chinese usually try to incorporate 8 whenever they can.

The boys were amused to find out also that number 4 is considered very unlucky, because 4 is read as "si" which sounds similar to "death" in Chinese. Some Chinese will go to extremes to avoid the number 4. Phone numbers, license plates, addresses with the number 4 are usually avoided.

So number 8 it is for us then!

We would need 14 ang pow packets here. Start off by folding the 4 corners of all the ang pow packets.

Then staple them to each other on the folded parts to form a coin-shape like below.

Continue stapling them to make the figure 8.

Make 2 sets for the front and back.

Staple the 2 sets together.

Add some tassel if you like and then hang on the wall.

Once you know how to make this, you can easily make other variations.

Like the Chinese coin below.