Spring Festival, which is also known as Chinese New Year, is the most important and grandest festival of the year for Chinese people. It begins on New Year's Eve (the day before New Year’s Day) and lasts until the 15th day of the first lunar month. Compared to the solar New Year, the Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar. It is not a global celebrating event, but a gala that belongs uniquely to the people who live in the East Asian cultural circle. During the New Year period, a series of activities are held to celebrate the festival according to traditional customs. Here is an introduction of how Chinese people celebrate the Chinese New Year.
Preparing for the New Year
The preparation of celebration for Chinese New Year begins even before New Year’s Eve. To properly celebrate Chinese New Year’s, each family will do a large scale cleaning of the home, from the floor to ceiling and everything in between. By cleaning everything, and making everything “new”, it expresses the wish to start the new year well and to leave the old in the previous year. In addition to Spring Cleaning, people also decorate the house with Spring Festival couplets, eat the New Year's Eve dinner, and stay up all night to see the new year in. If someone in the family can do calligraphy, the families will buy brush pens and special red paper to write the Spring Festival Couplets by themselves; if not, they can buy pre-written or printed Spring Festival Couplets from the market or ask their neighbors to help them write them. It is a very prestigious thing to be asked to write the spring couplets for neighbors in China.
New Year's Eve Dinner
The New Year's Eve dinner held on 除chú 夕xī is arguably the most important dinner of the year for Chinese people, as family members who have been dispersed from their homes will return to celebrate the new year with the extended families. In addition, no New Year’s Eve dinner is complete without having a dish of chicken, fish and rice cakes. These make up the three indispensable dishes on the table of New Year's Eve dinner. In southern China, there is an old saying that goes : No feast is complete without a chicken. Therefore, a chicken is a must for such an important dinner. Some conscientious people will even buy a chicken from a farmer a week before the New Year's Eve and raise it in their own houses. They will feed it with natural food for a few days, and then kill it on the New Year's Eve, as it is believed that the chicken will be the most fresh and flavorful when it is processed in this way. Besides the chicken, there must be a plate of fish dish during the New Year's Eve dinner, and this fish cannot be completely finished until the end of the feast. The scene of always having a plate of fish at the New Year's Eve dinner every year is called "年nián年nián有yǒu鱼yú" by Chinese people. "Fish" in Chinese sounds similar to the
Chinese character “余yú”, which also makes the saying signify "年nián年nián有yǒu余yú" in Chinese——every year, there is a surplus of money and property in this family. There is nothing more auspicious in China than to have saved an amount of money every year. Like fish, rice cakes (年nián糕gāo) are also eaten to bring good luck. The“糕” in rice cakes sounds the same as “高” as in high. Chinese people believe that by eating rice cakes at the
New Year's Eve dinner they will rise to greater heights in the new year, achieving great progress in both academics and career. dumplings are a must dish in northern China. In addition, dumplings (饺jiǎo 子zi) are a must dish in northern China. Dumplings are similar in shape to ancient silver and gold pieces. When we eat dumplings (饺jiǎo 子zi), it’s like we are taking in wealth.
Red Envelope Money
During New Year’s Eve, Chinese people also have a tradition of giving out yasui qian, or money given to children on New Year’s Eve. It is also colloquially called “red envelope money” because it is customarily given in red envelopes, but yasui qian specifically refers to the red envelope money received on New Year’s Eve. This tradition started from the Qing Dynasty and it wards off misfortune and bad luck. According to legend, there was a type of monster called “Sui”. On the last night of the year, it would go and scare children, turning them into fools. This tradition is also rooted in homophones. The term yasui (压岁) sounds the same as yasui (压祟), to suppress Sui, or evils. Parents and elders in the family will give their family’s children these red envelopes, and by following this tradition, these elders wish for their children to be safe and healthy in the new year.
Staying Up Late
By the time people are done eating new year’s eve dinner and receiving red envelope money, it is already deep into the night. At this time, the younger generation of the family will see in the New Year for their parents and elders in the family, staying up until dawn. According to folklore, by staying up all night, the younger generations can pray that their parents will have a long life, expressing filial piety. And for the older generations, seeing in the new year expresses the wish to bid farewell to the old and cherish the coming time. That’s why on New Year’s Eve, the household is always lit ablaze with lights, and the sound of people all night.
Staying up all night to see in the new year is the most popular activity for children on New Year's Eve.
Staying up late on New Year’s Eve is an ancient Chinese activity that was started to pray that calamities would not disturb or harm people in the next year. In the past, the lights in every house were kept on all night until dawn on that day, and with the lights, people would stay up all night. They would let off firecrackers and watch fireworks just to watch the night go by. Today, this custom of staying up all night is
rarely followed anymore, with most families starting to go to bed after midnight. Fireworks are no longer
commonly set off because of government regulations protecting the safety of people, property, and the environment. The new emerging "custom" is for families to get together to watch the Spring Festival Gala on TV after dinner. In most parts of northern China, they have another New Year’s custom which is to make dumplings as a family, and have these dumplings as breakfast the next day.
Chinese New Year Day 1
The day after 除夕 is known as the first day of Chinese New Year: "大年初一" (dà nián chū yī). In the past, Chinese people who experienced the New Year's Eve vigil would be woken up by the sound of firecrackers in the morning. Nowadays, because of the government regulations, this type of scene can only be experienced in the countryside. "Paying New Year's visits" (拜bài年nián) is the most important activity on the first day of lunar new year. In this activity, parents will take their children to visit their elders, friends and relatives. In this first greeting, people say "过guò 年nián 好hǎo" (Good New Year) or "恭gōng 喜xǐ 发fā 财cái (Hope you get rich), 万wàn 事shì 如rú 意yì (May all your hopes be fulfilled)" to each other. And then, the host will invite them to come in and sit down, exchange pleasantries and chat for a while, before getting up and saying goodbye, and then going to the next house. Children also have an important task in the New Year's greeting——receiving red envelopes. Children will go to the elders of the home to first give them a blessing of "Happy New Year", and then beg the elders for a red envelope. When the children are doing this, their attitude should be lively and their words pleasant. Only when the elders are happy with their behavior can they receive a red envelope. In some traditional families, children will even kneel and kowtow to show their gratitude when receiving red envelopes from their grandparents.
Chinese New Year Day 2
On the second day of Chinese New Year, it is customary for married women to visit their birth parents with their husbands and kids to pay a New Year’s call and stay with their birth parents for the day. The husband needs to accompany his wife to visit her relatives and elders in her home, just as she accompanies him to visit the elders of his family.
Chinese New Year Day 5
The fifth day of Chinese New Year is when Chinese people welcome the God of Wealth. Chinese people place great value on the fortune of wealth, they even have five gods who specialize in taking charge of wealth. On this day, people set off firecrackers on the streets, hang pictures of the God of Wealth in their homes, and stores and businesses rush to open on that day in order to ask the God of Wealth to bless them with a prosperous year. However, not everyone welcomes the God of Wealth in their homes with
such pomp and circumstance. Those who do not do business as a career may post a message on their social media platforms about it. Although it may seem like less people celebrate this day, according to the accounts of people who have the custom of welcoming the God of Wealth into their homes, the sound of firecrackers on the streets near their homes on this day is even louder than that of New Year's Eve.
Chinese New Year Day 15
The fifteenth day of Chinese New Year, known as "正月十五" (zhēng yuè shí wǔ), is the first traditional festival of the year. It also signifies the end of Spring Festival formally. On that day, people in the north
eat Yuanxiao and people in the south eat Tangyuan, a snow-white, round dessert that signifies the festive atmosphere of reunion and promise of a successful life. People also organize Lantern Festivals, and celebrate by making lanterns, attending exhibits of lanterns, and guessing lantern riddles. In ancient times, lovers also met on this day, so the Lantern Festival is also known as China's Valentine's Day. But more recently, couples prefer to celebrate on Qixi Festival, which has become the modern Chinese Valentine’s Day.
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