Unit 4 Spring Festival1

The Spring Festival-the oldest and most important of China's traditional festivals .All the traditional festivals in China are based on the Chinese lunar calendar. The Spring Festival marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year. In Chinese, we also say Guo Nian, meaning keeping off the monster of Nian.

There are many legends about the origin of Nian, The most popular one is this. It is said that Nian was a fierce monster back in ancient times. It looked like a strong bull with a head like that of a lion. Usually the monster stayed deep in the mountains and caught and ate other beasts. But during the winter, it could not find enough food. So it came out of its mountain lair and entered villages to eat whatever it could catch. Villagers became very frightened and moved away to escape the ferocious monster. But later the people found that even though it was fierce, Nian was afraid of three things: the red color, a bright flame, and a loud noise. After learning this, they figured out how to prevent Nian from entering their villages.

Just before Nian came again, every household painted their door red and burned a fire in front of their door-ways. Besides, the people did not go to bed. Instead, they stayed up all night beating on things to make a loud noise. Ever since, Nian has never again come to the villages.Thus, a tradition was established and the customs have been kept through the years. Later, the people found that bamboo could make a crackling sound when burned. In time, the nose of crackling bamboo was replaced with bang of firecrackers. This is how the Chinese people began to set off firecrackers for the Spring Festival.

Paper cuts During the Spring Festival, many families decorate their window panes with colorful and intricate paper cuts portraying characters from Chinese opera, flowers, birds, insects and fish.

New Year's Couplets New Year's couplets, written on two strips of red paper, are an important custom of the Chinese Spring Festival. On the lunar New Year's Eve, families in both urban and rural areas make it a point to grace their gate posts or door panels with the couplets, composed of two sentences that complement each other and often rhyme expressing their hopes for the coming year.

New Year's Paintings New Year's paintings are a type of Chinese folk art that draws inspiration from the rural landscape and expresses traditional notions of what is important in life, such as prosperity and babies.During the Spring Festival, many Chinese people pin up a few New Year's paintings in their living rooms to bid farewell to the old year and greet the new.

Greeting Cards Sending New Year's greeting cards to one's friends and family is yet another Chinese tradition. Sending the cards is a token of good will and is a useful way of keeping in touch with people one hasn't seen for a long time or who live far away. Candles Throughout the Spring Festival, from the first day of the lunar new year to the Lantern Festival, as well as on other important days of the year, it is traditional for all Chinese people, whatever their ethnic origins, to light brightly-colored candles as an expression of their joyful mood.

Since the Sping Festival marks the first day of a brand new year, the first meal is rather important. People from north and south have different sayings about the food they eat on this special day.

In Northern China, people usually eat Jiaozi or dumplings shaped like a crescent moon. It is said that dumplings were first known in China some 1,600 years ago. Its Chinese pronunciation Jiaozi means midnight or the end and the beginning of time.According to historical records, people from both north and south ate dumplings on Chinese New Year's Day. Perhaps because Southern China produced more rice than any other area, gradually, southern people had many more other choices on New Year's Day.

In addition to Jiaozi, the most common foods for the first meal of the Spring Festival are noodles, New Year Cakes and Tang yuan, a kind of round sweet dumplings. Both the cakes and dumplings are made of glutinors rice flour.In China, the noodle symbolizes longevity. The New Year Cake is called Nian Gao in Chinese. It conveys the hope of improvement in life year after year, the round sweet dumpling is a symbol of reunion.

Firecrackers It is traditional in China to celebrate the Spring Festival by letting off firecrackers or holding fireworks displays. As a result, the New Year's Eve night-sky is often a riot of color and everyone is kept awake to enjoy the festivities by the noise of explosions all around.

Red envelop It is popular for Chinese people to give a Red Envelop with some money for good wishes to the children and relatives who are younger than themselves.

To distinguish the lunar New Year from the New Year by the Gregorian calendar, the lunar New Year was called the Spring Festival (which generally falls between the last 10-day period of January and mid-February). The evening before the Spring Festival, the lunar New Year's Eve, is an important time for family reunions. The whole family gets together for a sumptuous dinner, followed by an evening of pleasant talk or games. Some families stay up all night, "seeing the year out." The next morning, people pay New Year calls on relatives and friends, wishing each other good luck. During the Spring Festival, various traditional recreation activities are enjoyed in many parts of China, notably lion dances, dragon lantern dances, land-boat rowing and stilt-walking.