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The best part about this time of year, kids will tell you, is getting the hong bao, or red envelope. Like noodles, hong bao make an appearance at birthdays and other times of year (I saw them handed out most recently at a cousin’s wedding), but they’re most associated with the New Year.

They’re red, of course, the luckiest color, and stuffed with money — some token amount, like $10 (or $20, maybe, if you’re extra lucky). Or people who pay special attention to such things might stick some amount with an “8″ in the envelope, since the number 8 sounds like the word for “wealth” and is therefore considered lucky. Man, we’re a superstitious bunch.

Hong bao are given to children and supposedly also to anyone who’s unmarried, but that starts to get a little humiliating at a certain point in one’s adulthood, as my friend Francis can attest.

I had the good fortune this year to receive a hong bao from my friend Allison, who happened upon an especially interesting envelope specimen, from an anthropological standpoint: above, the characters across the top say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” The rat (I don’t know about you, but none of the rats I’ve ever seen in NYC look like that) is surrounded by gifts and gold ingots (like dumplings!). He’s even wearing a number 8 on his jersey. Maybe roller skates are good luck too.