Chinese Birthday Culture
On my Chinese birthdays, my mum usually celebrates for me in a simple way. That is by cooking me a bowl of mee sua with two eggs . The celebration of birthdays in Chinese culture is quite different from the way it is celebrated in Western culture. red-dyed eggs The Chinese believes that a baby's birthday falls on the day he is conceived. Hence, the day he is born is the day he turns one year old. vermicelli (mee sua) which signified longevity herbal soup ingredients, pat chan the herbal soup boiled with chicken the mee sua with the herbal soup and eggs my bowl of mee sua! A very important practice for the Chinese is that for every birthday, an additional year is added to the birthday person. Say he/she is celebrating his/her 10th birthday. For the Chinese, it would be his/her 11th birthday instead. They believe that this would ensure the birthday person would live through the year and see the next.