Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year (Chun Jie) is the most important festival in the Chinese lunar calendar. Chun Jie means the "spring festival," and based on the almanac of the emperor Han Wu Di (140–87 BCE), it falls on the first day of the first month, which does not correspond to January first of the Western, Gregorian calendar. It is celebrated for fifteen days and culminates at the first full moon of the new year.
Before the New Year, Chinese families customarily conduct a thorough spring cleaning of their homes. Examples of auspicious Chinese calligraphy, such as chun (spring), fu (luck or happiness), and shou (longevity), as well as red-colored materials, are hung as decorative pieces in the home. In Chinese, the word for "red" sounds the same as the word for "prosperity." Festive delicacies (for example, biscuits and cakes) are prepared and new clothes purchased. On New Year's eve, family members gather for an annual reunion dinner. They offer food to the ancestral tablets, which are believed to embody the spirits of individuals who have produced sons capable of performing ancestral rites. In return for this attention, the ancestors ensure the fertility and prosperity of the lineage. This ritual renews and reaffirms filial ties. After dinner, many people visit local temples to offer prayers.
Throughout the period of the New Year celebrations, relatives and friends visit one another to offer felicitations. Gifts symbolizing tokens of good fortune, such as oranges and hon poa or hong bao ("red packets") containing money, are exchanged. In multiethnic nations in Southeast Asia, like Malaysia and Singapore, the practice of open houses has sprung up. Friends and acquaintances of other ethnic and religious back-grounds grounds pay visits to Chinese homes as a gesture of goodwill. Localized practices like these may be less in evidence in other parts of Asia.
Seng-Guan Yeoh
Further Reading
Bodde, Derk. (1975) Festivals in Classical China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chinese Customs and Festivals in Singapore. (1989) Singapore: Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations.
Wong, C. S. (1967) A Cycle of Chinese Festivals. Singapore: Malaysia Publishing House.
This complete Chinese New Year contains 341 words. This
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