I chose an arrangement of three bamboo stalks. There is a code to this:

5 stalks = Wealth.
4 stalks = Bad luck, possible death.
3 stalks = Happiness.
2 stalks = Luck.
1 stalk = You’re a cheapskate.

I’m not really a plant guy. They kind of die on me. My happy bamboo was the only plant I had. I put it on the shelf in the bathroom, where I thought it would get a bit of light and there would be moisture in the air.

I loved my bamboo plant, and cherished it, and gave it some water every now and then, but one of the stalks died. It just wasn’t suited to the Canadian winter. Not even the Canadian winter in my bathroom. I gave it a proper burial, and then my happy bamboo was a lucky bamboo.

I guess that’s why I kept having all that good luck, but I wasn’t happy. I cried all the way to the lottery office. ;)

The second stalk didn’t do much. It has fewer sprouts on it now than it did when I bought it. No leaves. What good is a plant with no leaves? It doesn’t seem very lucky.

The first stalk is doing ok, but I’m a little embarrassed about the whole enterprise. So this year I got another bamboo plant.

You can see that it’s of sturdier stock than that other bamboo plant. That other one was kind of an effete, bourgeois bamboo plant, but this one is more of a working person’s type of bamboo plant.

I’m going to love it and cherish it, and put it on the shelf in my bathroom where it will get a bit of light and pick up some moisture from the air.

Now I have five stalks, total. Does that mean I get wealth? Or does the 3-stalk one provide happiness and the two-stalk one provide luck? I wouldn’t mind having both luck and happiness, but I don’t think it works that way. I think you have to aggregate the total number of stalks in your possession.

I was thinking I should put the sad second stalk of last year’s plant out of its misery, and give it a proper burial. Then I’d have … um … four stalks …

Just the facts, ma’am

“Known for centuries as Lucky Bamboo, the plant is not a bamboo at all (botanical name: Dracaena) but a resilient member of the lily family that grows in the dark, tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia and Africa.”

So it’s a lily. Lucky lily.

See also:
Festivasia Part 1, The Mural
Festivasia Part 3, Little girls in pigtails