TDT Information -- China's Spring Festival Season - E-newsletter

Issued on February 15th, 2008 TDT Information

Dear Partner,

Greetings from Tang Dynasty Travel!

It is now China's Spring Festival Season (Chinese New Year). We would like to share our happiness and some information about Spring Festival with you.

Spring Festival is China's most important traditional festival. Spring Festival begins on the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month and lasts until the 15th day of the 1st lunar month. The biggest celebrations occur on New Year's Eve and the first day of the lunar New Year.

People all over the country have many activities to welcome the New Year. In the countryside, preparations begin on the beginning of the 12th lunar month. Each family will clean their homes, and wash their clothes and bedding to ensure that the New Year will be bright, clean, and prosperous. Special New Year purchases are also an important part of Spring Festival. In the cities, people celebrate the New Year with performances, various entertainment parties, and the larger parks hold "temple fairs" to provide recreation, food and art!
People burn incense in their homes and in the temples to pay respect to their ancestors and to ask the Gods for good health, peace, and luck in the coming year. Red lanterns are hung everywhere, and red couplets with auspicious poemsare pasted on either side of every front door. Pictures of the gods of wealth and protection are posted on front doors to ward off evil spirits and welcome peace and abundance. The Chinese character "fu" (meaning blessing or happiness) is a must. The character made of paper is normally pasted upside down, for in Chinese the "reversed fu" is homophonic with "fu comes". Red paper-cuttings can be seen on window glass and brightly colored New Year paintings with auspicious meanings may be put on the wall.

This traditional festival is also a festival of reunion. No matter how far away people are from their families, they will always try to return home to have the Reunion Dinner. In the South of China, the reunion dinner usually consists of more than ten dishes including tofu (bean curd) and fish, because the pronunciation of these two meals sounds like "wealthy" in the Chinese language. In the North of China, most of the reunion meals consist of Jiaozi (dumplings) stuffed with meats and vegetables, since the shape of the dumplings resembles a gold ingot, eating jiaozi symbolizes the bringing of wealth into one's life. After the meal, the whole family stays up and chats with each other, to discuss what has happened in their lives in the past year, and what the future will bring. In recent years, the Spring Festival Gala, broadcast live on China Central Television has become an essential part of Chinese New Year's entertainment for Chinese people both at home and abroad.

When the clock strikesmidnight to announce the arrival of the New Year, many households set off fireworks, creating a thunderous roar and clouds of smoke. The use of fireworks symbolizes the sending off of the old and ushering in of the new.

On New Year's, and the following days, everyone wears new clothes. People pay New Year visits to relatives and friends to extend the New Year's greetings. Cities, rural towns, and villages put on performances of lion, dragon, and other folk dances.

The Legend of Spring Festival

The Chinese name for Spring Festival is "Guo Nian". Guo means pass over and Nian means year. The origin of the Chinese New Year Festival can be traced back thousands of years through a continually evolving series of colorful legends and traditions.

One of the most famous legends states that in ancient China there lived a monster named Year who was extremely ferocious with a large horn on the center of its head. Year lived deep at the bottom of the sea and every New Year's Eve he came ashore to devour the cattle and kill the people. Because of this, every New Year's Eve, the people from all the ?villages would flee to the remote mountains to avoid the calamity. On one New Year's Eve, the people of Peach Blossom village were about to flee, when an old beggar arrived from outside the village. He carried a stick in his hand and a bag on his arm. His eyes twinkled like stars and he had a graceful beard the color of silver. The villagers were all too busy preparing for their flight to take notice of the beggar. All except for a grandmother living in the east end of the village, who gave the old man some food and advised him to flee to the mountains to avoid the Year monster. The old man stroked his beard and said with a smile, "If you allow me to stay at your home for the night, I'll drive away the monster Year." The old woman agreed, and allowed the old beggar to stay for the night.

Around midnight the monster Year rushed into the village, and found the atmosphere was quite different than normal. The house at the east end of the village was brilliantly illuminated with bright red paper stuck on the doors. The monster Year stared angrily at the house for a moment, and then howling furiously, decided to attack. As he approached the door, there came the roar of explosions. Trembling all over, the monster dared not make a step forward. When the door was thrown open, an old man in a red robe burst out laughing in the courtyard, the monster Year was so scared, that he fled. The next day, the villagers were amazed to find none of the destruction they had expected. The old woman suddenly realized what had happened and told the villagers about the old beggar's promise. The villagers swarmed into the grandmother's house, to find that the doors were covered with red paper, a few candles were still glowing in the room, and embers of burning bamboo were still giving out exploding sounds in the courtyard. The villagers concluded that the old beggar was surely a celestial being who came to help them, and that red paper, red cloth, red candles and the exploding firecrackers were certainly the magical weapons used to drive out the monster Year.

To celebrate their survival, the villagers put on their best clothes and went to their relatives and friends to give their regards and congratulations. The story soon spread to the surrounding villages, and the people all learned how to drive away the monster Year. From then on, each New Year's Eve, each family stick on their doors auspicious couplets written on red paper, light firecrackers, keep their houses brilliantly illuminated, and stay up late into the night. Early in the morning of the 1st of the first lunar month they go to their relatives and friends' to give their regards and congratulations. These customs are celebrated throughout China, and have been kept for generations.

The ways of celebrating Spring Festival have changed with the passage of time, but the atmosphere of happiness and the people's hopes for a happy life have remained unchanged.

A park in Qingdao city, located in east China, has a 6-meter high Olympic rat welcoming visitors during Spring Festival. The rat statue is inside a big ring made of the five Olympic rings, indicating a happy rat greeting new Olympic year.

We wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Candy Yu

Sales Director
Tang Dynasty Travel
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