The Spring Festival, like the New Year's Day in the West, is China's biggest festival, also called Lunar New Year, comes on the 1st day of Chinese lunar calendar and ends with the Lantern Festival.
The Spring Festival is the first day of Chinese Lunar New Year. During the Spring Festival, all people rush to go home for reunion. Spring Festival travel rush is the largest population flow in the world. During the Spring Festival, relatives greet each other and send red packets. We will also get together to see cctv Spring Festival Gala.
Legend has it that the "Nian"(year) was a very strong monster. People used red color and fireworks to drive it away. As a result, the custom of using red color and setting off fireworks remains. In history, The Spring Festival originated from the worship of gods and ancestors at the end of the Shang Dynasty. It is the largest, most lively and most important ancient traditional festival in China.
Couplets are pasted on both sides of the gates. And the Chinese character "Fu" is pasted upside down in the center of the door.
Dumplings and reunion dinner are indispensable at this time. Fish is also an essential dish, which expresses people's wish for a wealthy year. During the Spring Festival, Chinese Han and some ethnic minorities will hold various activities to celebrate. These activities are mainly based on the worship of ancestral gods, the commemoration of ancestors, the elimination of old cloth, the welcome of blessings, and the prayer of prosperity. The activities of the Spring Festival are colorful and varied, with rich ethnic characteristics. Influenced by Chinese culture, some countries and ethnic groups belonging to the cultural circle of Chinese characters also have the custom of celebrating the Spring Festival.
The dust is traditionally associated with “old” so cleaning their houses and sweeping the dust mean to bid farewell to the “old” and usher in the “new”. Days before the New Year, Chinese families clean their houses, sweeping the floor, washing daily things, cleaning the spider webs and dredging the ditches. People do all these things happily in the hope of a good coming year.
Waiting for the First Bell Ringing of Chinese New Year.
The first bell ringing is the symbol of Chinese New Year. Chinese people like to go to a large squares where there are huge bells are set up on New Year’s Eve. As the New Year approaches they count down and celebrate together. The people believe that the ringing of huge bell can drive all the bad luck away and bring the fortune to them. In recent years, some people have begun going to mountain temples to wait for the first ringing. Hanshan Temple in Suzhou, is very famous temple for its first ringing of the bell to herald Chinese New Year. Many foreigners now go to Hanshan Temple to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Staying up late ('Shousui')
Shousui means to stay up late or all night on New Year's Eve. After the great dinner, families sit together and chat happily to wait for the New Year’s arrival.
New Year Feast
Spring Festival is a time for family reunion. The New Year's Feast is 'a must' banquet with all the family members getting together. The food eaten on the New Year Even banquet varies according to regions. In south China, It is customary to eat 'niangao' (New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) because as a homophone, niangao means 'higher and higher every year'. In the north, a traditional dish for the feast is 'Jiaozi' or dumplings shaped like a crescent moon.
Setting Firecrackers
Lighting Firecrackers used to be one of the most important customs in the Spring Festival celebration. However, concerning the danger and the negative noises that lighting firecrackers may bring, the government has banned this practice in many major cities. But people in small towns and rural areas still hold to this traditional celebration. Right as the clock strike 12 o'clock midnight of New Year's Eve, cities and towns are lit up with the glitter from fireworks, and the sound can be deafening. Families stay up for this joyful moment and kids with firecrackers in one hand and a lighter in another cheerfully light their happiness in this especial occasion, even though they plug their ears.
New Year Greetings(Bai Nian)
On the first day of the New Year or shortly thereafter, everybody wears new clothes and greets relatives and friends with bows and Gongxi (congratulations)， wishing each other good luck, happiness during the new year. In Chinese villages, some villagers may have hundreds of relatives so they have to spend more than two weeks visiting their relatives.
On the first day of the new year, it’s customary for the younger generations to visit the elders, wishing them healthy and longevity.
Because visiting relatives and friends takes a lot of time, now, some busy people will send New Year cards to express their good wishes rather than pay a visit personally.
Gift Money
It is the money given to kids from their parents and grandparents as New Year gift. The money is believed to bring good luck, ward off monsters; hence the name 'lucky money'.
Parents and grandparents first put money in small, especially-made red envelopes and give the red envelopes to their kids after the New Year's Feast or when they come to visit them on the New Year. They choose to put the money in red envelopes because Chinese people think red is a lucky color. They want to give their children both lucky gift money and lucky color.
