Bananas are one of the essential fruits for the altar on Lunar New Year’s Day. In feng shui, choosing bananas is very important as it can affect your wealth and career. To choose beautiful bunches of bananas for the fruit tray, homeowners should not overlook the following tips.
How many bananas should you choose for the altar?
From the 26th to the 27th day of the lunar month, green bananas are abundantly available for sale, and people can freely choose. For the Lunar New Year’s Day altar, it is necessary to select bunches of bananas with equally-sized, green, and unripe fruits. Although ripe bananas turn yellow, they quickly spoil and cannot be used for the entire Lunar New Year week. For people in the north, bananas symbolize a prosperous and warm family. Bananas grow upwards, and they collect sunlight and morning dew, resulting in sweet fruits with the meaning of luck, protection, and care.
Furthermore, it is crucial to avoid choosing bunches of bananas with an even number of fruits. This is one of the first principles when buying bananas for worship.
According to feng shui experts, even numbers are considered negative and not good for homeowners, while odd numbers are positive and symbolize vitality, growth, and luck.
Things to note when choosing bananas for Lunar New Year
+ Do not choose Cavendish bananas
For the Lunar New Year’s fruit tray, families should choose plantain bananas instead of Cavendish bananas. Plantain bananas are larger and have curved fruits, making them aesthetically pleasing. Curved and elongated bananas can securely hold other fruits such as oranges and tangerines. On the other hand, Cavendish bananas are usually smaller and only suitable for worshiping the Wealth God or Buddhist altars.
+ Do not choose ripe bunches of bananas
When buying bananas for the altar, homeowners should choose bananas that are not yet ripe but are round and without bruises, and they should not be too young. Fully ripe bananas are prone to falling, rotting, and spoiling during worshiping. This is considered inauspicious during the Lunar New Year and should be avoided.
+ Do not choose deformed or unbalanced bunches of bananas
When purchasing, homeowners should choose large, long, spread-out bunches of bananas that resemble the palm of Buddha’s hand, symbolizing protection and support for future generations, bringing about unity, prosperity, peace, and happiness for the whole family.
+ Avoid bunches of bananas with dull colors
Experience shows that these bananas have been harvested for a long time. To avoid overripe and unsellable bananas on Lunar New Year’s Day, traders often keep them in refrigerators. Buying these bunches of bananas means they are less likely to ripen and taste as they should.
Tips for arranging the fruit tray
The Lunar New Year’s fruit tray should have different colors that symbolize the Five Elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth.
Specifically, gold represents Metal, green represents Wood, black represents Water, red represents Fire, and yellow represents Earth. Moreover, there is also a belief that the fruit tray symbolizes the Five Blessings (five desires of human beings), which are wealth, dignity, longevity, harmony, and peace.
The fruit tray also differs between regions. People in the northern region decorate their fruit trays with green bananas, pomelos (or Buddha’s hand citrons), peaches, persimmons, and oranges or tangerines. In contrast, families in the southern region often choose fruits such as mangoes, oranges, pineapples (fragrant fruit), papayas, star apples, mangosteens, and watermelons.
Regardless of the fruit chosen, homeowners should pay attention to the general principle of arranging larger and heavier fruits as a base, and smaller fruits should be placed on top or inserted in empty spaces to create a visually appealing display without any fallen fruits.
Source: Xe và thể thao