[Design by Kou Jie, special thanks to Pixabay]
Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival or Lunar New Year, is the biggest festival celebrated in China, along with many other Asian countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia. Traditionally, the festival lasts up to two weeks, with the climax arriving around Spring Festival eve, while each day showcases different customs, celebration and cultural elements.
This year’s Spring Festival falls on Jan. 25. According to the Chinese zodiac, which features a 12-year cycle with each year represented by a specific animal, 2020 is the Year of the Rat!
For most Chinese people, the five-character term “衣食住行乐”, which means “clothing, food, residence, movement and entertainment”, fully represents their basic needs and hopes in their future life. This year, People’s Daily Online has provided our readers a Spring Festival Encyclopedia covering the five aspects mentioned above, bringing you interesting facts that you didn’t know about this grand festival!
衣(yī)-春节新衣 (Spring Festival New Clothing)
Wearing new clothes is a historical tradition for Spring Festival. According to Dongjing meng Hua lu (Literally: Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern capital), a memoir featuring authoritative pictures of affluent Chinese culture written by Meng Yuanlao (c. 1090-1150), Chinese people would wear new clothes on the first day of Spring Festival, as the tradition was considered to bring a fresh new start and good luck for the new year.
In the old days, noble families would wear silk dresses and robes, while poor families would use homespun fabric to make new clothes. Most of the clothes were red in color, as people believed red could expel evil spirits and protect them. For children, tiger-shaped decorations on hats and shoes were also used to protect their spirit, allowing them to grow up stronger and healthier.
Wearing new clothes for the Spring Festival used to be a very important festival ritual. In ancient times, impoverished Chinese people didn’t have enough money to buy new clothes regularly like we do today. Spring Festival provided them a chance to enjoy themselves and fulfil their wish to pursue beauty. Although people in modern times can easily get new clothes whenever they want, wearing new clothes remains an important Spring Festival tradition and represents a new beginning of a happy year.
食(shí)-春节聚餐 (Spring Festival Reunion Dinner)
The family reunion dinner is very culturally significant. Served on Spring Festival eve, it is a 4,000-year-old tradition passed down through generations in China. Usually involving a hearty feast, the dinner is also a historical record of Chinese traditions and culture, with every dish containing its own auspicious symbolism.
According to the Records of Jinchu, China’s encyclopedia of folk customs during the 6th and 7th centuries, the reunion dinner is usually held in or near the home of the most senior member of the family, while all family members work together to prepare a feast.
For every Chinese family, fish is an indispensable part of the reunion dinner. In Chinese, fish has the same pronunciation as 余 (yu), which means ‘surplus’. For Chinese people, it is always good to have saved something by the end of the year, so that more good fortune will follow.
The typical blessing that comes with the fish dish is 年年有余, an idiom wishing people a surplus of food and money in the new year. It is also very important to choose the right type of fish. The Crucian carp and Chinese mud carp are most often used for reunion dinners, as the first character of crucian carp (鲫鱼, jìyú) sounds like the Chinese word 吉 (jí, good luck), while the Chinese word for mud carp has a similar pronunciation to the word for ‘gift’.
With people’s living standards improving significantly in recent years, more and more Chinese prefer to eat out for New Year rather than cook at home. More advanced Internet technologies have also made it possible for people to order half-finished dishes online, or even invite a chef to help out at home. The form of the reunion dinner may have changed a lot, but the essence of family love still warms the heart of every Chinese person.
住(zhù)-春节对联 (Spring Festival Couplets)
As we mentioned earlier, Spring Festival represents a fresh new start. Traditionally, home is the most important place for Chinese people, so keeping it clean and tidy is a crucial part of preparations for Spring Festival.
Whether it is a beautiful villa or a small village hut, the housewife of the family will always take the lead to carry out a thorough clean of the house before Spring Festival. Family members will also lend a hand with the chores, making sure that a year of filth and dust is properly disposed of, so that room will be made for good luck to come in.
After the cleaning, every house is decorated with bright red Chinese knots, window paper-cuts, pictures with the character ‘Fu’ in the center, as well as lanterns and couplets.
Pasting couplets on doors is a tradition that originated during the Five Dynasties (907-909), and still remains an enduring aspect of Chinese culture. In ancient times, people hung short branches from a peach tree on doors to expel evil spirits. Later, the branches were replaced by wooden plates with Chinese characters on it, which then became a piece of red paper with a line of verse to welcome the New Year. Dueling couplets became a popular literary game with Chinese speakers, requiring verbal and intellectual dexterity, while the writer had to have advanced calligraphy skills to make the couplets more appealing.
行(xíng)-春节运输 (Spring Festival Travel Season)
The first day of the Spring Festival is specifically for family members. After that, people will visit their relatives and friends, exchanging greetings and presents. This is known as the “New Year Visit.”
In modern times, the younger generation usually live in big cities far away from their hometowns. This means that the approach of the Spring Festival marks the start of the world’s largest annual migration, known as chunyun, bringing family members together despite the long distances.
There will be three billion trips made during the travel rush from Jan 10 to Feb 18 for family reunions and travel, slightly up from last year, according to a forecast from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). NDRC predicted an 8-percent growth in train trips, 8.4-percent increase in air trips and 9.6-percent hike in waterway trips.
The heavy travel volume has made it very difficult to buy train tickets. The transportation authorities have already developed mobile apps and websites to help people get tickets, while older people who are not familiar with modern technologies can also use more traditional means to buy tickets, including visiting a kiosk or ordering tickets by phone.
In a bid to avoid the travel rush, many families have abandoned the traditional way of celebrating the festival at home. Family members living in different cities will pick a rendezvous that is less crowded, such as small villages or tourist sites, and celebrate the festival on the road. This new trend is called “Anti-Spring Festival Travel Rush”.
乐(lè)-春节晚会 (Spring Festival CCTV Gala)
Watching the CCTV New Year’s Gala might be the most recent Spring Festival tradition in China, as the first Gala was shown in 1983. Despite the declining viewership in recent years, it is still essential viewing for many people. The 4.5-hour live broadcast features music, comedy, dance, opera and acrobatic performances, while the New Year bell on the TV gala is the official announcement for the start of the new year.
Traditionally, receiving pocket money in a red envelope is the highlight of the festival for children. Thanks to new technologies, people can now send electronic greeting cards, fun memes and money through instant messaging apps, while many online shopping platforms, such as Taobao, will design fun mobile games for users, urging them to collect electronic red envelopes to receive real money.
Many Chinese Internet enterprises have also seized the opportunity to share the festival happiness with their users. According to incomplete statistics, there will be virtual red envelopes worth more than 5 billion yuan (about 700 million) sent by Chinese Internet companies during the Lunar New Year.
