The Chinese New Year is a time for celebration and the marking of the passage of time and seasons. Chun Jie, also known as Spring Festival, brings with it a ton of ordnance, a blanket of work stoppage, and a great excuse for a huge party on the last day of the last month on the Chinese lunar calendar, which is called Da Nian San Shi. The first day of the first month is called Chu Yi, and this is the actual New Year’s Day, the official start of the year.
In China, Spring Festival is the most important holiday observance on the calendar and is just about everyone’s favorite time of the year.
Cleaning Up / Sweeping
The week leading up to New Year’s Eve, people clean and wash and sweep, getting ready for the big night. Sweeping out the household dust represents getting rid of any bad luck accumulated over the past year. Also done this week: lots of window washing, the preferred wiping tool being a newspaper (works a treat, give it a try if you haven’t yet). The first 5 days of the new year are a no sweeping period, as it is traditional to avoid sweeping on these days in order to not brush out the fresh luck of the new year. Moral of the story: Spring Festival means Spring Cleaning!
Door Couplets (dui lian/对联)
These Spring Couplets are seen on doors, usually with black characters on red paper. The short benedictions wish those entering the door prosperity, good fortune, health, wealth, and more. Many older people still gather a crowd at an informal dui lian market to write the traditional couplets. Check out more info on these poetic Spring Festival Distiches.
Gong Xi Fa Cai, Hong Bao Na Lai
Also written as Kung Hay Fat Choy to reflect the Cantonese pronuciation, this blessing is said to bring wealth and good fortune in the new year. Hong bao are literally “red envelopes”, traditionally given to children on Spring Festival, newlyweds on their wedding day, and employees as New Year bonuses. If someone says “Gong Xi Fa Cai”, meaning “wish you wealth and fortune”, you can ask them to put their money where there mouth is by saying “Hong Bao Na Lai”, meaning “bring out the red envelope”, or more to the point, show me the money.
Firecrackers
Originally made of homemade mini bamboo pipe bombs, firecrackers are vital to the Chinese New Year experience. Expect a full assault on visual, olfactory, and auditory senses on Da Nian San Shi and then all the way through the Lantern Festival, when at the end of Spring Fest the kids are picking up the last few firecrackers that did not go off yet and throwing them in a final shout of celebratory pomp. In between, a gazillion tiny red dynamite wannabes smoke and split the air in a show that many people liken to a battle scene from a war zone. It’s all in good fun though, and traditionally meant to scare away evil spirits. Mission accomplished.
The firecrackers are most intense around midnight, right when everyone is getting ready to have the jiaozi (dumplings) made for the special occasion. Eating jiaozi is a must on the eve of Da Nian 30 – as are the massive firework pyrotechnics that sometimes stretch to dawn. The first and last evenings of Spring Festival are the heaviest fireworks nights.
Usually before people start to have the formal dinner on New Year’s Eve, they set off firecrackers for about 5 to 10 minutes.
Jiaozi, Sticky Rice, New Year’s Foods
Spring Festival is a time to eat with everyone you meet, from the feast of New Year’s Eve to the meals shared over the first few days of the year as people visit family and friends. The most important food of the festival is jiaozi. Many people put a few coins into some of the dumplings to represent good luck and fortune.
Dumplings are a must have for Da Nian San Shi, after lighting firecrackers at the stroke of midnight on this year’s Feb 13/14 border. No one would think of having New Year’s Eve dinner in Qingdao without jiaozi. Leftovers are perfect for frying up the next day to make guo tie, or what some people call pot stickers.
The tail end of the Spring Festival brings Lantern Festival (Yuan Xiao Jie/元宵节), which is celebrated with tang yuan, a sticky rice ball in a sweet broth, with fillings of peanut, sesame, red bean, and more.
Eating sweet tang yuan on the night of the first full moon of the lunar year is symbolic of happiness and peace.
Yuan Xiao Jie (Lantern Festival)
Yuan Xiao Festival signals the end of the Spring Festival, on the 15th day of the first month on the Chinese lunar calendar. This is also the start of the Lantern Festival, which is a great time to head over to Zhongshan Park to view to brilliant lights and decorations. Yuan xiao are sticky rice ball treats filled with black sesame paste, red bean paste, or just good old sugar, walnuts, osmanthus, or dates. Served warm in the broth they were cooked in, yuan xiao are a delicious and nutritious dessert to the main courses of Spring Festival.
There is a myth about why people hang red lanterns on Lantern Festival (Yuan Xiao Jie/元宵节). Long, long ago there were many horrible beasts in human society which did nothing but hurt people. People got together to kill these beasts but accidentally a holy bird got lost in human society and was killed by mistake.
The Emperor of Heaven was very angry and ordered a big fire to be set to punish people. But his seventh daughter was too kind to see people suffering because of her father’s rage, so she came up with the idea of having people hang red lanterns everywhere to recreate the atmosphere of fire. Thereafter, people started to celebrate this day with the hanging of red lanterns.
Eating sticky rice dumplings (tang yuan) is the most important custom of Lantern Festival. The Chinese people want everything to have a happy ending, so eating sweet tang yuan on the night of the first full moon of the lunar year is symbolic of happiness and peace.
Relevant Links:
All About Spring Festival History
Western – Chinese Calendar Converter
Fantastic Fireworks Video from Chinese New Year
You must be logged in to post a comment.