The Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is often called the Lunar New Year, especially by people in mainland China and Taiwan. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year’s Eve is known as in English,” Year-pass Eve”.
Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Lunar Calendar. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. Ancient Chinese New Year is a reflection on how the people behaved and what they believed in the most.
Celebrated in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors, as well as cultures with whom the Chinese have had extensive interaction. These include Koreans, Tibetans and Bhutanese, Mongolians, Vietnamese , and formerly the Japanese before 1873 (Oshogatsu). Outside of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, Chinese New Year is also celebrated in countries with significant Han Chinese populations, such as Singapore, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. In Canada, although Chinese New Year is not an official holiday, many ethnic Chinese hold large celebrations and Canada Post issues New Year’s themed stamps in domestic and international rates.
Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese New Year vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of “ happiness”, “wealth”, and “longevity”. On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will range from pigs, to ducks, to chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is a great way to reconcile forgetting all grudges, and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.
Although the Chinese calendar traditionally does not use continuously numbered years, outside China its years are often numbered from the reign of Huangdi. But at least three different years numbered 1 are now used by various scholars, making the year 2009 “Chinese Year” 4707, 4706, or 4646.

Mythology

According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nien. Nien would come on the first day of New Year to devour livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nien ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nien was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nien was afraid of the colour red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nien. From then on, Nien never came to the village again. The Nien was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk. The Nien became Hongjun Laozu’s mount.

Festivities

Similar to the Sinhala and Hindu New year in Sri Lanka, new clothes are worn to signify the New Year and a fresh start. And houses are cleaned before the New Year because the Chinese believe that cleaning sweeps away bad luck of proceeding year and embraces good luck. In most households, after cleaning home altars and statues, the altars are being decorated with new decorations.
The most significant custom is the dinner every family has. Usually a dish of fish is eaten on the New Year’s Eve.
The first day of the new year is for the welcoming of deities of the heavens and earth. The second day of the Chinese New Year is for married daughters to visit their parents. The third and fourth day of the Chinese New Year are generally accepted as inappropriate days to visit relatives and friends. The fifth day is the birthday of the Chinese god of wealth. The seventh day is called the common man’s birthday, while the eighth day is another family dinner to celebrate the eve of the birth of Jade Emperor. The ninth and tenth days too are dedicated to the Jade Emperor. The thirteenth day is dedicated to the god of war. The fifteenth day of the festival is called the Lantern Festival. The Chinese celebrate these fifteen days in a traditional manner.
- Internet