This Article Originally Appeared On Vulcan Post.
We all know those Chinese New Year superstitions, and the rules about what not to do. After all, the rules are what truly makes the Chinese New Year what it really is: a strangely stressful, loud, and anxiety-ridden holiday.
But while we do need to gather all the luck we can get this CNY for our jobs, relationships, and health, we also need to ensure that we have luck in our online life. Here are 8 Tech Superstitions you need to follow this Chinese New Year to help you get all the online luck you can get.
1. Dress your devices in red
This one is pretty simple: everyone knows that red is a lucky colour. So go all out, get that new red smartphone or tablet cover — heck, change your wallpaper to something particularly red and festive. Your aunties and uncles will love you, they’ll praise your commitment to the occasion, and your eyes will never feel the same again.
Remember, your new phone and tablet covers must be brand new. If you’re getting a new outfit, surely your devices deserve one too.
2. Do not use Final Cut Pro
In fact, any video or photo editing software should not be touched at all. Cropping images or cutting out video snippets will cut your luck away, and then all those well-cropped #CNYOOTD won’t seem that worth it anymore.
3. Make sure your inboxes are full
This is a toughie, but make sure that your email and message inboxes are completely full by New Years’ Eve. Not only will you avoid receiving those annoying CNY messages with all the horrible puns, but you will also ensure that your online relations will be filled to the brim this year, and you can avoid any of that FOMO nonsense.
4. Turn your ‘Fu’-one upside down
Turning the ‘Fu’ word upside-down means ‘luck has arrived’ in Mandarin, so turning your phone upside down will probably have the same effect. Plus, you get that upside down text reading practice that you never usually get! What luck!
5. Don’t clean your search history
During the 15 days of CNY, you are not allowed to clean your search history, or you will delete away all your good luck. In fact, do not delete anything at all. You should have done your computer spring cleaning before that, and you shouldn’t be surfing those websites anyway. Shame on you.
In fact, it’s not just your software that should be left alone…
6. Don’t clean the screens of your devices in the first 3 days of CNY
See that layer of grime on your laptop screen, and the soup splatters from those noodle meals you made while watching the Game of Thrones from your laptop? That stuff brings you luck, especially the noodle stains (noodles represent long lives, according to Chinese tradition). Leave it, and deal with the smudgy resolution.
7. Don’t buy e-books
The word ‘book’ in Chinese sounds like the word for ‘lose’, and ‘e-book’ sounds like ‘one book’, so don’t you think about buying even one. If you’re gonna get yourself an e-book, go ahead and torrent it. It doesn’t count if you don’t buy it, after all.
8. Post social media updates in twos
This way, you will be able to multiply your social media friends. (Don’t confuse this with actual friends.)
Happy Chinese New Year!
