Ushering in the Spring Festival: Get lucky this Lunar New Year by avoiding these taboos

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Spring Festival in China is synonymous with spending time with loved ones, firecrackers, and of course, red packets. But there's so much more to it, with traditions and superstitions steeped in thousands of years of history. These include age-old taboos, which are still followed until this very day, as Natasha Hussain explains.

There are some superstitions for the 15-day long Spring Festival in China, that can maybe help ward off bad luck, let's start with day one.

NATASHA HUSSAIN BEIJING If you're feeling sick on New Year's Day… well tough luck, you're going to have to stick this one out! It's taboo to take medicine or go to the hospital because if you do, it's believed you'll be plagued with illness for the entire year.

So to avoid unwanted hospital time, exercises to keep you fit and healthy during the coming year!

This next one is a pretty good excuse to ignore that growing laundry pile, washing clothes are frowned upon on the first and second days of the Spring Festival, as those days celebrate the birthday of the water god.

How do you deal with this? Well, you can plan outfits and wash your clothes in advance, a good hack to avoid doing laundry during those pivotal days.

Time to bust out that dry shampoo, avoid washing your hair on the first day of Spring Festival. You can only do that after the second day of the Lunar New Year, as in Mandarin, the word for hair has the same pronunciation and character as the fa in facai which means to become wealthy. So, washing your hair is seen as "washing away one's fortune".

Any major house cleaning needs to be done before New Year's Day and doing so means you’ve swept away all the bad luck from the previous year. But sweeping during the first day of the festival is seen as sweeping away wealth. Taking out the garbage also symbolizes dumping out good luck or good fortune.

Safety first! Using sharp objects like knives, scissors and needles are to be avoided at all costs — and it's not only to prevent accidents! It's long believed to bring about bad luck and the depletion of wealth.

Wearing raggedy, old and unpresentable clothing is also a major no-no.Wearing white or black is not okay as these colors are associated with mourning. But wearing red on the other hand brings good luck.

Whether you believe there's truth to these taboos or not, these age-old traditions are still widely practiced across China today, they reflect the people's optimism for the better, wishing to have a joyous, prosperous and success-filled new year. With that said, happy Chinese New Year!