Culture Note: The first 5 days of Chinese new year celebration

Image source:http://sc.chinaz.com/tupian/1640505870.htm

When the bell rang midnight 12 o’clock on Chinese new year eve, the celebrations formally started.

The traditional celebration normally lasts for 15 days, until the lantern festival on 15th January, Chinese calendar. However, in modern days, the celebration mostly concentrates on the first 5 days, and then finishes with the lantern festival on the 15th day (well, more like 18th, when all the lanterns are packed away).

The whole celebration can be generally summarised as follows:  ‘visiting friends and families, to say happy new year’, ‘eating and eating’, and ‘setting off the fireworks’. But, there are different customs associated to each day.

For example, for married couples, on the first day, you need to celebrate the new year with the husband’s family; the second day is called ‘Hui Niang Jia’, which literally means to go back to wife’s family; on the third day, normally you can have a quiet day at home, just have dinner with your closest relatives; there is also nothing special on the forth day, so it is normally the best time to meet friends; the fifth day is called ‘Po Wu’, which means to ‘break five’, any ‘not-to-dos’ in the past four days, now you can break it, for example, clean the house, and throw away the rubbish. (Normally you are not supposed to clean the dusts away -- it is kind of metaphor for keeping  "wealth at home").:))

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Culture note: Chinese new year eve celebration --- ‘the Spring festival’ II

Where should I start? --- Food!! The night for Chinese new year is called ‘Tuan Yuan Ye‘, means ‘an evening for everyone to gather together’. The dinner for Chinese new year eve is called ‘tuan yuan fan’, which means that everyone in the family would all gather around the table and eat together. --- So, you can imagine how much I miss home being with my parents and how much they miss us. :((

Dumplings are the most common food on the table. My friends from southern China used to tell me  that they do not normally make dumplings at home, the only day they would make them is on new year's eve. It is a tradition in China in most places. However, as I mentioned before, my mom always prefers to make ‘He Zi’, as she likes its shape and similar pronunciation to ‘unity’ -- she wishes the whole family to be together at all times. So she always makes ‘He Zi’ instead of dumplings. Then we would have dumplings on New year day.

Another significant event in China is CCTV’s celebration TV program (central Chinese TV channel), which starts at 8pm, normally last 5 hours or even a bit longer. It is a synthesized entertainment program, and almost every household would sit in front of the TV to watch. It has become a tradition in China since 1979.

Don’t underestimate the program, it is not only important for Chinese people, make people feel like celebrating the new year with a ‘big family’, but also anyone who performs in the program could have an instant career ‘push’, become well-known. :))) The theme of this year’s program is ‘going home for the new year’, so there are lots of performances are just like ‘tear gas’, made me cry --- my homesick became worse. :(

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Culture note: Chinese new year: ‘the Spring festival’ I

Image source:http://www.nipic.com/show/4/110/4378639k6baf27cf.html

:))) Since Chinese New Year is around the corner now, and it is this blog’s first Chinese new year, let’s talk about this important Chinese festival, its traditions and customs.

According to Chinese history, the celebration of Chinese new year started during the Xia dynasty, over 4000 years ago.

The main celebration is on the first day of the new year in Chinese calendar, which is different every year according to Western calendar. In any case, it is always sometime in January or February.

The Chinese New Year festival is called ‘Chun Jie’ in Chinese, which means ‘Spring festival’. It is the most important festival in China. It formally lasts 5 days; however, the whole first month of the year in the Chinese calendar is quite important, and there are many traditions and customs.

Although Chinese new year is celebrated in many countries in far east Asia, different cultures have slightly different customs, even within China, different regions and different ethnic groups have different celebrations. So here I am mainly talking about the celebration in Northeast China, where I am originally from.

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Chinese Culture note: today is ‘Xiao Nian’ (little new year) !

             Image source:http://photo.xinzhou.org/2009/0118/picture_1161_5.html   Image source:http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1376530070



As I said yesterday, today all the Chinese new year celebrations are starting!!

In Chinese, today is called ‘Xiao Nian’, which literally means ‘little new year’. It should probably be called ‘pre-new year’ instead. Xiao Nian normally happens 7 days before Chinese new year day; however, different regions, and even different social classes in the past celebrated Xiao Nian on different days (for example, the emperors and royals would have it a day earlier than ordinary people). In northeast China, it is always on 23rd Dec in Chinese calendar. And our celebration may be a bit different to the other regions.

From this day onwards, traditionally people started preparing goods for the new year celebration -- although, nowadays, people normally start preparations much earlier. The preparation commonly includes stocking food, buying new clothes for new year, and home decoration, for example, hanging the couplets on both side of the door, sticking some festival paper cut figures on the door and windows, hanging the red lanterns in and outside the house.

However, the main point of the celebration on this day is still about food. :)) --- Yes, to have enough food and wealthy life for the coming new year.

It is said that in Xia dynasty times (over 4000 years ago), there was a fairy, called ‘Zao wang ye’, who was is in charge of the ‘cooker’ (at least, that is what we say) of every household -- more like ‘to make sure people have enough food to eat. And on this day, ‘Zao wang ye’ goes to the ‘above’, and reports to the Jade emperor how people behave, therefore what kind of fortune they should have for the new year.

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