hinese 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 (Chinese: 正月;
pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this
day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year's Eve is known as
Chúxī. It literally means "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 neighbours, as well as cultures with whom
the Chinese have had extensive interaction. These include Koreans,
Mongolians, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Vietnamese, and formerly the Japanese
before 1873. 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 color 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, its years are
often numbered from the reign of Huangdi outside China. But at least
three different years numbered 1 are now used by various scholars,
making the year 2009 "Chinese Year" 4707, 4706, or 4646.
Animal Branch Dates
鼠 Rat
子 Zi February 19, 1996 February 7, 2008
牛 Ox
丑 Chou February 7, 1997 January 26, 2009
虎 Tiger
寅 Yin January 28, 1998 February 14, 2010
兔 Rabbit
卯 Mao February 16, 1999 February 3, 2011
龍 Dragon
辰 Chen February 5, 2000 January 23, 2012
蛇 Snake
巳 Si January 24, 2001 February 10, 2013
馬 Horse
午 Wu February 12, 2002 January 31, 2014
羊 Sheep
未 Wei February 1, 2003 February 19, 2015
猴 Monkey
申 Shen January 22, 2004 February 8, 2016
雞 Rooster
酉 You February 9, 2005 January 28, 2017
狗 Dog
戌 Xu January 29, 2006 February 16, 2018
豬 Pig
亥 Hai February 18, 2007 February 5, 2019
The
lunisolar Chinese calendar determines Chinese New Year dates. The
calendar is also used in countries that have adopted or have been
influenced by Han culture (notably the Koreans, Japanese and Vietnamese)
and may have a common ancestry with the similar New Years festivals
outside East Asia (such as Iran, and historically, the Bulgars lands).
In
the Gregorian calendar, Chinese New Year falls on different dates each
year, a date between January 21 and February 20. In the Chinese
calendar, winter solstice must occur in the 11th month, which means that
Chinese New Year usually falls on the second new moon after the winter
solstice (rarely the third if an intercalary month intervenes). In
traditional Chinese Culture, lichun is a solar term marking the start of
spring, which occurs about February 4.
The dates for
Chinese New Year from 1996 to 2019 (in the Gregorian calendar) are at
the left, along with the year's presiding animal zodiac and its earthly
branch. The names of the earthly branches have no English counterparts
and are not the Chinese translations of the animals. Alongside the
12-year cycle of the animal zodiac there is a 10-year cycle of heavenly
stems. Each of the ten heavenly stems is associated with one of the five
elements of Chinese astrology, namely: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and
Water. The elements are rotated every two years while a yin and yang
association alternates every year. The elements are thus distinguished:
Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, etc. These produce a combined
cycle that repeats every 60 years. For example, the year of the Yang
Fire Rat occurred in 1936 and in 1996, 60 years apart.
Many
confuse their Chinese birth-year with their Gregorian birth-year. As
the Chinese New Year starts in late January to mid-February, the Chinese
year dates from January 1 until that day in the new Gregorian year
remain unchanged from the previous Gregorian year. For example, the 1989
year of the snake began on February 6, 1989. The year 1990 is
considered by some people to be the year of the horse. However, the 1989
year of the snake officially ended on January 26, 1990. This means that
anyone born from January 1 to January 25, 1990 was actually born in the
year of the snake rather than the year of the horse. Many online
Chinese Sign calculators do not account for the non-alignment of the two
calendars, using Gregorian-calendar years rather than official Chinese
New Year dates.
One scheme of continuously numbered
Chinese-calendar years assigns 4706 to the year beginning January 26,
2009, but this is not universally accepted; the calendar is
traditionally cyclical, not continuously numbered.
Mythology
Hand-painted Chinese New Year's poetry pasted on the sides of doors leading to people's homes, Lijiang, Yunnan, PRC.
According
to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with
the fight against a mythical beast called the Nian or "Year" in Chinese.
Nian 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 Nian ate the food they
prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that
the Nian was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers
then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color 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 Nian. From then on, the Nian never
came to the village again. The Nian was eventually captured by Hongjun
Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk. The Nian became Hongjun Laozu's mount.
Public holiday
Chinese
New Year is observed as a public holiday in a number of countries and
territories where a sizable Chinese population resides. Since Chinese
New Year falls on different dates on the Gregorian calendar every year
on different days of the week, some of these governments opt to shift
working days in order to accommodate a longer public holiday. Also like
many other countries in the world, a statutory holiday is added on the
following work day when the New Year falls on a weekend.
Preceding days
On
the days before the New Year celebration Chinese families give their
home a thorough cleaning. There is a Cantonese saying "Wash away the
dirt on ninyabaat" (年廿八，洗邋遢), but the practice is not usually restricted
on nin'ya'baat (年廿八, the 28th day of month 12). It is believed the
cleaning sweeps away the bad luck of the preceding year and makes their
homes ready for good luck. Brooms and dust pans are put away on the
first day so that luck cannot be swept away. Some people give their
homes, doors and window-frames a new coat of red paint. Homes are often
decorated with paper cutouts of Chinese auspicious phrases and couplets.
Purchasing new clothing, shoes, and receiving a hair-cut also symbolize
a fresh start.
In many households where Buddhism or
Taoism is prevalent, home altars and statues are cleaned thoroughly, and
altars that were adorned with decorations from the previous year are
also taken down and burned a week before the new year starts, and
replaced with new decorations. Taoists (and Buddhists to a lesser
extent) will also "send gods" (送神), an example would be burning a paper
effigy of the Kitchen God, the recorder of family functions. This is
done so that the kitchen god can report to the Jade Emperor of the
family household's transgressions and good deeds. Families often offer
sweet foods (such as candy) in order to "bribe" the deities into
reporting good things about the family.
The biggest
event of any Chinese New Year's Eve is the dinner every family will
have. A dish consisting of fish will appear on the tables of Chinese
families. It is for display for the New Year's Eve dinner. This meal is
comparable to Christmas dinner in the West. In northern China, it is
customary to make dumplings (jiaozi 饺子) after dinner and have it around
midnight. Dumplings symbolize wealth because their shape is like a
Chinese tael. By contrast, in the South, it is customary to make a new
year cake (Niangao, 年糕) after dinner and send pieces of it as gifts to
relatives and friends in the coming days of the new year. Niangao
literally means increasingly prosperous year in year out. After the
dinner, some families go to local temples, hours before the new year
begins to pray for a prosperous new year; however in modern practice,
many households hold parties and even hold a countdown to the new lunar
year. Beginning in the 1980s, the CCTV New Year's Gala was broadcast
four hours before the start of the New Year.
First day
The
first day is for the welcoming of the deities of the heavens and earth,
officially beginning at midnight. Many people, especially Buddhists,
abstain from meat consumption on the first day because it is believed
that this will ensure longevity for them. Some consider lighting fires
and using knives to be bad luck on New Year's Day, so all food to be
consumed is cooked the day before.
Most importantly, the first day
of Chinese New Year is a time when families visit the oldest and most
senior members of their extended family, usually their parents,
grandparents or great-grandparents.
Some families may invite a
lion dance troupe as a symbolic ritual to usher in the Lunar New Year as
well as to evict bad spirits from the premises. Members of the family
who are married also give red packets containing cash to junior members
of the family, mostly children and teenagers.
While
fireworks and firecrackers are traditionally very popular, some regions
have banned them due to concerns over fire hazards, which have resulted
in increased number of fires around New Years and challenged municipal
fire departments' work capacity. For this reason, various city
governments (e.g., Hong Kong, and Beijing, for a number of years) issued
bans over fireworks and firecrackers in certain premises of the city.
As a substitute, large-scale fireworks have been launched by governments
in cities like Hong Kong to offer citizens the experience.
Second day
Incense
is burned at the graves of ancestors as part of the offering and prayer
ritual. The second day of the Chinese New Year is for married daughters
to visit their birth parents. Traditionally, daughters who have been
married may not have the opportunity to visit their birth families
frequently.
On the second day, the Chinese pray to
their ancestors as well as to all the gods. They are extra kind to dogs
and feed them well as it is believed that the second day is the birthday
of all dogs. Business people of the Cantonese dialect group will hold a
'Hoi Nin' prayer to start their business on the 2nd day of Chinese New
Year. The prayer is done to pray that they will be blessed with good
luck and prosperity in their business for the year.
Third and fourth days
The
third and fourth day of the Chinese New Year are generally accepted as
inappropriate days to visit relatives and friends due to the following
schools of thought. People may subscribe to one or both thoughts.
1)
It is known as "chì kǒu" (赤口), meaning that it is easy to get into
arguments. It is suggested that the cause could be the fried food and
visiting during the first two days of the New Year celebration.[citation
needed]
2) Families who had an immediate kin deceased in the past
3 years will not go house-visiting as a form of respect to the dead,
but people may visit them on this day. Some people then conclude that it
is inauspicious to do any house visiting at all. The third day of the
New Year is allocated to grave-visiting instead.
Fifth day
In
northern China, people eat Jiǎozi (simplified Chinese: 饺子; traditional
Chinese: 餃子), or dumplings on the morning of Po Wu (破五). This is also
the birthday of the Chinese god of wealth. In Taiwan, businesses
traditionally re-open on this day, accompanied by firecrackers.
Seventh day
The
seventh day, traditionally known as renri 人日, the common man's
birthday, the day when everyone grows one year older. It is the day when
tossed raw fish salad, yusheng, is eaten. This is a custom primarily
among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and
Singapore. People get together to toss the colourful salad and make
wishes for continued wealth and prosperity.
For many Chinese
Buddhists, this is another day to avoid meat. Chinese New Year's
celebrations, on the eighth day, in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond,
British Columbia, Canada.
Eighth day
Another family dinner
to celebrate is the God of Heaven known as Tian Gong. However, everybody
should be back to work by the 8th day. All of government agencies and
business will stop celebrating on the eighth day.
Ninth day
The
ninth day of the New Year is a day for Chinese to offer prayers to the
Jade Emperor of Heaven (天公) in the Taoist Pantheon. The ninth day is
traditionally the birthday of the Jade Emperor. This day is especially
important to Hokkiens. Come midnight of the eighth day of the new year,
Hokkiens will offer thanks giving prayers to the Emperor of Heaven.
Offerings will include sugarcane as it was the sugarcane that had
protected the Hokkiens from certain extermination generations ago.
Incense, tea, fruit, vegetarian food or roast pig, and paper gold is
served as a customary protocol for paying respect to an honored person.
Tenth day
The
Jade Emperor's birthday. On the 13th day people will eat "Choi Sum
(veggie)" to clean out their stomach due to consuming too much food over
the last two weeks.
Thirteenth day
This day is
dedicated to the General Guan Yu, also known as the Chinese God of War.
Guan Yu was born in the Han dynasty and is consider the greatest general
in Chinese history. He represents loyal, strength, truth, and justice.
According to history, he was tricked by the enemy and was beheaded.
Almost every organization and business in China will pray to Guan Yu on
this day. Before his life ended, Guan Yu had won over one hundred
battles and that is a goal that all businesses in China want to
accomplish. In a way, people look at him as the God of Wealth or the God
of Success.
Fifteenth day
The fifteenth day of
the new year is celebrated as Yuánxiāo jié (元宵节), otherwise known as
Chap Goh Mei in Fujian dialect. Rice dumplings Tangyuan (simplified
Chinese: 汤圆; traditional Chinese: 湯圓; pinyin: tāngyuán), a sweet
glutinous rice ball brewed in a soup, is eaten this day. Candles are lit
outside houses as a way to guide wayward spirits home. This day is
celebrated as the Lantern Festival, and families walk the street
carrying lighted lanterns. This day often marks the end of the Chinese
New Year festivities.
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