Far and away the most
important holiday in China is Spring Festival, also
known as the Chinese New Year. To the Chinese people
it is as important as Christmas to people in the
West. The dates for this annual celebration are
determined by the lunar calendar rather than the
Gregorian calendar, so the timing of the holiday
varies from late January to early February.
To the ordinary Chinese, the festival actually
begins on the eve of the lunar New Year's Day and
ends on the fifth day of the first month of the
lunar calendar. But the 15th of the first month,
which normally is called the Lantern Festival, means
the official end of the Spring Festival in many
parts of the country.
Preparations for the New Year begin the last few
days of the last moon, when houses are thoroughly
cleaned, debts repaid, hair cut and new clothes
purchased. Houses are festooned with paper scrolls
bearing auspicious antithetical couplet (as show on
both side of the page) and in many homes, people
burn incense at home and in the temples to pay
respects to ancestors and ask the gods for good
health in the coming months.
"Guo Nian," meaning "passing the
year," is the common term among the Chinese
people for celebrating the Spring Festival. It
actually means greeting the new year. At midnight at
the turn of the old and new year, people used to let
off fire-crackers which serve to drive away the evil
spirits and to greet the arrival of the new year. In
an instant the whole city would be engulfed in the
deafening noise of the firecrackers.
On New Year's Eve, all the members of families
come together to feast. Jiaozi, a steamed dumpling
as pictured below, is popular in the north, while
southerners favor a sticky sweet glutinous rice
pudding called nian gao.
