The Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, is a 15-day celebration starting on the evening before the first day of the first lunar month. Families clean their homes, buy new clothes, and celebrate with fireworks, food, and gifts. The festival ends with the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day.
The Spring Festival, also known as Chinese New Year, is the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar. It is usually a fifteen-day celebration, starting on the evening before the first day of the first lunar month and ending with the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day. Preparations begin many days in advance and families travel to celebrate together similar to Westerners at Christmas.
The Chinese calendar is lunar and works differently from the Gregorian calendar. The Spring Festival usually falls towards the end of January of the Gregorian calendar and is celebrated by Chinese communities around the world with fireworks, lion dancing, dragon dancing and parades. The whole family gathers to eat and celebrate.
In preparation for the Spring Festival, people clean the inside and outside of their homes and everything inside them, get their hair cut, pay off debts, and buy new clothes. Cleaning the house is thought to rid it of evil spirits and bring good luck for the coming year. The houses are decorated with rolls of red paper painted with black Chinese symbols representing New Year greetings. The night before, or “New Year’s Eve,” the family gets together and celebrates with a large meal, often including Jiaozi, a traditional steamed dumpling.
At midnight, fireworks and firecrackers are set off, hoping to scare away evil spirits and welcome in the new year. The first few days of the Spring Festival are spent visiting family and friends to wish them a Happy New Year. Gifts are exchanged and children are given money wrapped in red paper, often called “lucky money. These days we wear new outfits.
The celebrations take place all over the country and spread across the streets. Parades, traditional dances and music abound for the first five days and often longer. This also applies to the many Chinese communities living outside China, where the Spring Festival is celebrated just as casually.
The end of the Spring Festival is marked on the fifteenth day, with the arrival of the full moon. On this night many lanterns are hung, lion dances are performed and feasts are enjoyed, often including the consumption of dumplings. A popular activity at the Lantern Festival is guessing riddles, which are written on paper and placed on the lantern. If a person thinks he knows the answer, he pulls the paper away and goes to the owner of the lantern. If they’re right, they get a small gift.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
