Emily Jung Miller

Fifth in a series of monthly sketches exploring my Hakka Chinese heritage and personal family history through traditional foods and recipes. In celebration of Lunar New Year, which falls on February 17 this year, I painted a "good luck" arrangement of two mandarin oranges with a lucky red envelope. During my childhood, my family gathered at my Hakka grandmother's house each year for a Lunar New Year banquet. We wished each other the traditional Cantonese Gung hee fah choy ("wishing you prosperity") for the new year, and she always gave me a red envelope with lucky money inside. These red envelopes are called hongbao in Mandarin, and lai see in Cantonese. I only remember calling them "red envelopes" in my family.

Pairs of fruits are often gifted during the Lunar New Year season, as even numbers are considered lucky. Mandarin oranges are one of the traditional lucky New Year fruits, since the character for "lucky", 吉, is contained within the character for tangerine, 桔. Mandarins with the stem and leaf attached offer extra good fortune, representing longevity and fertility. I chose to paint a hongbao with the characters for "great luck" 大吉 (dà jí) in metallic gold enamel.

The character for tangerine 桔 is a simplified form of 橘. Both characters are used to represent the tangerine, although the Cantonese use the two variations for different species of fruit within the same family.

Limited spaces are now open for custom painting commissions in 2026! I am accepting commissions for sizes 16x20" and larger.