A Chinese candy box is a traditional box used during

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Sinophone, Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly r ...

for storing

candy Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language an ...

and other edible goods. The box usually has a lid; some are more fancy and elaborate than others. It is usually colored with a red or black motif, since traditional candy boxes were

lacquerware Lacquerware are objects decoratively covered with lacquer. Lacquerware includes small or large containers, tableware, a variety of small objects carried by people, and larger objects such as furniture and even coffins painted with lacquer. Befor ...

. Also red symbolizes good fortune and joy (see

Color in Chinese culture Chinese culture attaches certain values to colors, like which colors are considered auspicious () or inauspicious (). The Chinese word for "color" is ''yánsè'' (). In Classical Chinese, the character ''sè'' () more accurately meant "color i ...

). Due to the higher price of lacquerware, most modern Chinese candy boxes are made of plastic, but some of them are still made of lacquerware.

Occasions

The box is generally used for Chinese New Year, though some regional

Chinese culture Chinese culture () is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands of years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia and is extremely diverse and varying, with customs and traditions varying grea ...

s may use it for other important events such as

Chinese marriage Traditional Chinese marriage () is a ceremonial ritual within Chinese societies that involves not only a union between spouses, but also a union between the two families of a man and a woman, sometimes established by pre-arrangement between fam ...

s. Usually it consists of 8 or 6 (Chinese auspicious lucky numbers) kinds of sugar preserved dried fruits or even dried vegetables like the bittergourd.

Items stored

Chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

coins A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to ...

* Dried candied

lotus root ''Nelumbo nucifera'', also known as sacred lotus, Laxmi lotus, Indian lotus, or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is sometimes colloquially called a water lily, though this more often re ...

* Dried candied

lotus seed A lotus seed or lotus nut is the seed of plants in the genus ''Nelumbo'', particularly the species ''Nelumbo nucifera''. The seeds are used in Asian cuisine and traditional medicine. Mostly sold in dried, shelled form, the seeds contain rich con ...

* Melon seed * Dried candied

kumquat Kumquats (; zh, 金桔), or cumquats in Australian English, are a group of small fruit-bearing trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae. Their taxonomy is disputed. They were previously classified as forming the now-historical genus ''Fortun ...

* Dried candied

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

* Dried candied

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...

* Dried candied

carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', nat ...

slices * Dried candied

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

* Dried candied

water chestnut Water chestnut may refer to either of two plants (both sometimes used in Chinese cuisine): * The Chinese water chestnut ('' Eleocharis dulcis''), eaten for its crisp corm * The water caltrop The water caltrop is any of three extant species of th ...

* Dried candied

winter melon ''Benincasa hispida'', the wax gourd, also called ash gourd, white gourd, winter gourd, winter melon, tallow gourd, ash pumpkin, Chinese preserving melon is a vine grown for its very large fruit, eaten as a vegetable when mature. It is the o ...

táng dōng guā (lit. candied winter melon) * Dried

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...

Occasions

Items stored

See also