Chinese New Year Ⅲ

The Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, is the most important traditional festival in China, celebrated for fifteen days. There are many customs relating to food, greetings, and gifts.

Cleaning

On the days before the New Year, Chinese families give their houses athorough cleaning. Traditionally, this is done on New Year's Eve.

Dust and dirt are associated with "old" in Chinese culture, so cleaning the house and sweeping the dust represent bidding farewell to the past and ushering in the New Year.

Family Feast

The New Year's Eve Feast is a "must" banquet with all the family members getting together. People from north and south have different sayings about the food they eat on this special day.

Southern Chinese eat "niangao" (a cake made of glutinous rice flour) on this special day, because "Niangao" sounds like "higher and higher every year".

In northern China, a traditional dish for the feast is "jiaozi", dumplings, which are shaped like a crescent moon.

Watching the CCTV New Year Gala

The annual CCTV New Year Gala begins at 8pm and lasts for 4 hours, to the beginning of the New Year.

Shousui - Staying up late

Shousui means to stay up late or all night on New Year's Eve. After the New Year's Feast, families sit together and typically watch CCTV New Year Gala, waiting for the New Year to arrive.

The First Bell Ringing of Chinese New Year

The first ringing bell is a symbol of Chinese New Year. Chinese people like to go to large squares where there are huge bells set up on New Year's Eve. As the midnight approaches they count down and celebrate together.

People believe that the ringing of large bell can drive all the bad luck away, and bring good fortune to them. In recent years, some people have begun to go to mountain temples to wait for the first ringing of a bell.

Hanshan Temple in Suzhou in East China's Jiangsu Province is very famous for its first ringing of the bell to herald Chinese New Year. The custom is even beginning to be adopted by the ex-pat community there.

Decorations

Days before the New Year festival, department stores, official buildings, office buildings, and streets are decorated with red lanterns and red couplets.

Private houses are usually decorated on New Year's Eve. People paste red couplets and door gods on doors, and hang red lanterns in their houses.

The reason why red color is frequently used for New Year decorations is that it is associated with good fortune and happiness in Chinese culture.

In North China, it is customary to paste paper-cuts on windows, while in South China, e.g. Guangzhou and Hong Kong, certain flowers and plants are used.