Tradition | Good luck chicken for Lunar New Year

The poultry bought live and killed on the spot at wet markets constitute one of the main treats for  Chinese New Year festivities. But the H7N9 flu strain (bird flu) is changing consumer habits and could lead to the ban of live poultry sales.
Local wet markets are bustling these days, and costumers look for live birds to cook the favorite dishes you’d find in most Chinese homes during the festive season.
According to Fernando Sales Lopes, a journalist and researcher based in Macau, the custom of buying live poultry is mostly a way to make sure of its quality. “This is what happened all over the world before people started moving from rural areas into cities,” he says. “In the rural societies, or even in the urban ones that have a strong attachment to the rural land, like the Chinese, the animals are provided for sale alive.”
That’s why, according to him, a frozen chicken is seen as something suspicious by the consumer, since they don’t know its origin or the way it has been preserved. Food safety scandals are common in mainland China and even in Macau.
But something is certain, he says: sold live or frozen, the chicken will remain a strong symbol during the Lunar Year season.
It is appropriate to eat chicken on the first day of the Chinese New Year. Fernando Sales Lopes stresses that the chicken is a common treat on the family table, and also in the traditional cult of the ancestors.
According to Sales Lopes, in ancient times the chicken was considered a bird of five virtues, with the rooster’s comb representing “civil dignity,” the leg’s spike “military dignity and courage fighting enemies.” The way that chickens share food was also viewed as benevolent.
During the Lunar Year, it is also the custom to stick, paste or paint chicken talismans on the doors of dwellings.  MDT/Lusa