Good Luck Life: The Essential Guide to Chinese American Celebrations and Culture

A great book to share when planning a multi-cultural event, like a wedding. Written in comprehensive, easy language and is a great gift. Useful for learning about what to do, when to do it and how to do things in Chinese culture, properly.

This book is great for anyone who is interested in Chinese American culture but especially good for those who grew up here in America. I always wondered about the traditions and rituals my mother and grandmother performed when I was a kid. This book explains it all! Its slightly biased towards West coast Chinese culture, compared to those more common to East Coast. But great nonetheless.

I first stumbled across this book at the library in the school where i work. As a first generation Chinese born in US, i was naturally curious about my heritage and why my family practiced certain traditions and what they all meant. This book answered many of the questions i had about our traditions and more. Not only does this book introduce all the "general" holidays and traditions of Chinese people, but it also explains the why and how to. Since our families are more assimilated into american culture, i wanted to know more about the practices so i could share them with my children. Also, there are differences in holidays and traditions by regions (northern, souther, etc.) across China, so this book has that disclaimer where it states how things are generally done and that there may be exceptions. Overall, after reading this book, i feel much more knowledgeable about what's appropriate and what's not during what occassion. I would recommend this book to anyone who wanted to learn more about Chinese culture and traditions.

The book did answer a few questions for me, but was not exactly what I was looking for. It was weighed much more heavily towards explaining holidays and celebrations rather than culture, which was what I was more interested in reading about. Will keep looking....

Great book that gives a basic overview of Chinese traditions. If you want to know more details,(such as the myths and Gods that relate to every event) there are other books. It is written in an easy format, very assessible to people who are not Chinese. I give it 5 stars for what it is-- an introductory-style book on Chinese traditions.