![]() This fierce and cruel creature eats livestock and children, but it is scared of the color red, along with fire and noise, according to Reader's Digest. The tradition may have come from the story of the Nian. The decorations are typically red because in the Chinese culture, the color can bring happiness, wealth and prosperity by warding off evil spirits and bad luck. "Basically, red decorations are to the Chinese New Year festival what Christmas trees are to Christmas," Wang said.Ī calligrapher in Foshan, China, makes couplets - banners with wishes of good fortune and long life - for the Spring Festival. Homes are often decorated with vertical banners featuring two lines of poetry, folk paintings, intricate paper cuttings (similar to cutouts of paper snowflakes), festive scrolls and lanterns. "On Chinese New Year's Eve, all family members will try their very best to travel back home, no matter how far away they may be (even on the other side of the world) to enjoy the family reunion feast known as nián yè fàn."īefore the new year comes, it is customary for people to completely clean their houses to get rid of bad fortune from the old year and decorate their tidy houses, all with an atmosphere of rejoicing and celebration. ![]() "The Spring Festival is the most important holiday in China and is celebrated as such," Chen said. Chinese also greet each other with blessings such as 恭喜发财 ("gōngxǐ fācái" in Mandarin) or ("Kung hei fat choi" in Cantonese), meaning "Wishing you a happy and prosperous Chinese New Year!" "Guo Nian Hao" - which means "Happy New Year" - is a common Chinese New Year greeting, Chen said. (Image credit: szefei/Shutterstock) Chinese traditions and customs for the new year The festival was later reinstated.ĭuring Chinese New Year celebrations, houses are decorated with paper lanterns. It became a public holiday in 1914 during China's Republican period, but celebrations were banned in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution. The holiday is believed to have originated during the Shang Dynasty (1600 to 1100 B.C.) as a spring carnival in which people offered sacrifices to gods and ancestors at the end of the winter, welcoming the arrival of the spring, Chen said. "The matching of the 10 stems and 12 branches (stem-branch), paired with the 12 zodiac animals, yields a total of 60 possible combinations." History in China "Traditional Chinese timekeeping relies on a sexagesimal system, called 'Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches,'" Lotus Perry, instructor in Chinese language and culture at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, and director of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation in Tacoma, told Live Science. In 2021, the sign of the Chinese zodiac will transition from the rat to the ox. Each year is represented by an animal in the Chinese zodiac: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. The Chinese lunisolar calendar is divided into lunar cycles of 60 years, and each cycle is further divided into five smaller cycles of 12 years each. In 2021, the Lunar New Year will be celebrated on Feb. ![]() In the Gregorian calendar, the first day of the festival occurs on the new moon between Jan. That's usually the second new moon after the winter solstice. "The Chinese New Year falls on the first day of the first month in the lunar calendar," Jianguo Chen, associate professor of Chinese at the University of Delaware, told Live Science. ![]() Some years, an extra lunar month is needed to keep the new year in its correct alignment with the seasons. The traditional calendar uses lunar months, but adds in a solar component to account for drift. (Most dates internationally are expressed in the Gregorian calendar, which is based only on the Earth's orbit around the sun.) ![]() The Spring Festival is celebrated either in January or February depending on a "lunisolar" calendar, a combination of a lunar or moon-based calendar and a solar calendar like the one that is used in much of the Western world. In 2021, travel and gatherings before the holiday were once again restricted, according to the New York Times. According to a paper published in The Lancet, the Chinese government enacted some protective measures to promote social distancing and prevent travel of infected people. In 2020, Lunar New Year festivities in China were partially curtailed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. ![]()
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