搶頭香 (Custom)

Before we start the topic, let’s watch a short film first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBYdvy6c718

What exactly are they doing?

It’s believed that he who gets to burn the first incense of the year in the temple, i.e. to put his incense stick into the incense burner first would be extremely blessed and lucky for the year. That’s why a lot of people will wait outside some prestigious temples for the gates to be open during the midnight of the Chinese New Year’s Eve.

Such an act is called搶頭香(qiang3 tou2 xiang), literally meaning competing to burn the first incense. The competition is such that you can see some funny scene as someone “cheating” like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f2pUUKhkJc&feature=related

It turns out that this term is not limited to temples, but has become a common usage to describe the act of getting to be the first to do something. For example, Taiwan’s newly elected legislators reported for duty on Feb, 1. According to the news report, a DDP legislator had arrived at the Legislative Yuan around 6:00 a.m. to “搶頭香” even though the procedure was scheduled to start at 8:00. Somehow another legislator entering from the side gate accidentally turned out the one who搶了頭香.

For the man who turned over the incense burner in the film, the physical pain might not as much as that when he saw the grandma putting her incense into the burner leisurely and “elegantly.”

搶頭香=抢头香