HappyChinese New

Year!!

WhenChinese New Year is the main Chinese festival of the year. As the Chinese use the Lunar calendar for their festivals the date of Chinese New Year changes from year to year. The date corresponds to the new moon (black moon) in either late January or February.

Traditionally celebrations last for fifteen days, ending on the date of the full moon

The Year of the Horse is coming

• The Chinese New Year of the Horse will be on 31 January 2014

•Until then, it is still the Year of the Snake which began on 10 February 2013.

Chinese New Year Decorations

• Chinese New Year is a time when families get together to celebrate. It is also a special time to remember members of the family who have died. In the days coming up to New Year every family buys presents, decorations, food, new clothes and people have their hair cut. Houses are cleaned from top to bottom. The aim is to sweep out any bad luck from the old year and clear the way for good luck. However, it is bad luck to clean on New Years Day itself.

• On New Years Eve decorations made from red and gold paper are hung down the doors to bring good luck.

• The decorations are marked with messages of good fortune such as happiness, prosperity and long life, known as Spring Couplets. These mostly have four Chinese characters

• The color red is chosen for two reasons. The first is because red is a lucky color and the second because it is supposed to frighten off the monster Nian who is thought to come on New Years Eve. The color gold represents wealth.

Chinese New Year Family Celebrations• Everyone comes together for dinner which is a feast. A popular food is

‘jiaozi’ which are dumplings boiled in water. These dumplings are prepared on New Years Eve and served right after midnight with garlic-soy sauce. A coin is often hidden in one of them. It is thought to be lucky to be the person who finds the coin. The dumplings are shaped like gold and silver bars in the hope that they will bring good luck and good fortune. It is believed that the spirits of the family’s ancestors are also at the meal and food is prepared for them.

• After dinner the family sit up playing card games or board games such as Chinese chess. Every light is supposed to be kept on until midnight when there are fireworks and firecrackers which are meant to scare off evil spirits.

• Early on New Years Day children receive lucky red packets called ‘Hong Bao’ containing sweets or money. Chinese children love these.They are usually given them by their parents or grandparents, but it is considered rude to open the envelopes in front of the person who has given it.

During Chinese New Year,People greet each other by saying 'Kung Hei Fat Choy!', which means Happy New Year!

The Lantern Festival

• The celebrations end on the fifteenth day with ‘The Festival of Lanterns’. Everywhere is decorated with lanterns of different sizes and in the streets there is music and dancing.

• Children go out in the streets at night with lanterns and people paste riddles onto lanterns so that visitors can guess the answers.

• The making of lanterns in China is a tradition which goes back 500 years. Red lanterns are thought of as lucky.