New year, new stamp.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) will release its Year of the Rooster stamp on Jan. 5, 2017, in a ceremony at the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, Washington. The stamp, part of the USPS' Celebrating Lunar New Year Series, will also be available for purchase nationwide starting on that date.
“The new stamp’s image of a red envelope with the rooster is a meaningful recognition of Asian-American cultural heritage,” Beth Takekawa, executive director of the Wing Luke Museum, told NBC News. “Our community’s traditions and legacy shape our future, and the Wing Luke Museum is proud to have the USPS Year of the Rooster stamp launch here.”
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The Year of the Rooster stamp is the 10th stamp in USPS’s Celebrating Lunar New Year series by artist Kam Mak. Mak, currently a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, was born in Hong Kong and grew up in New York City.
“Our community’s traditions and legacy shape our future, and the Wing Luke Museum is proud to have the USPS Year of the Rooster stamp launch here.”
The stamp features a painting by Mak of a rooster on a red envelope, which are often filled with money and given to children during the Lunar New Year and other celebrations in Asian cultures. The rooster or chicken is one of twelve zodiac animals that represent each year in some Asian cultures.
The stamp also includes elements from the original USPS series of Lunar New Year stamps, which were released in 1992, including the late Clarence Lee’s paper cut of a rooster and Lau Bun’s grass-style calligraphy of the Chinese character for rooster.
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