Spring Festival Time - Happy New Year!

Image Source: Blackpool Fireworks 2006 (China)License

Spring Festival, or Chunjie as it is called here, has begun! Tonight is Chinese New Year’s Eve. I thought I’d write a little bit about what happens in China during the Spring Festival.

Chunyun

Chunyun started around a week ago. This is the time around Spring Festival, when people travel home to spend Spring Festival with their families. Hundreds of millions of people are on the move during this period.

This year has seen exceptionally bad weather wreak havoc with Chunyun travel: Around 6 million people were stranded at train stations around the country - 800,000 at Guangzhou alone.

My thoughts go out to those people who have been stranded during this time. I hope they make it home safely and in time for New Year’s Eve.

Spring Festival Customs

Bear in mind that different parts of China have different customs, but some of the common elements that are part of Spring Festival are:

Fire Crackers: People set fire crackers off to frighten away evil spirits. They set off fireworks as well, for fun, but a long string of fire crackers is used to keep the evil spirits away for the next year. If you live in China, expect to hear whooshes and bangs for a week or so, either side of New Year’s Eve.

Eating: A big family reunion dinner is normally held on New Years Eve. Fish is commonly eaten, as are dumplings (Jiaozi). This meal is normally held at the family home. As well as this meal, there will be many others on the days leading up to, and after, New Year’s Eve.

Visiting Friends and Relatives: People will visit their friends and relatives, taking gifts such as tea, alchohol, breakfast cereal, fruit, etc, done up in gift packages. The host will normally have tea, fruit and nuts ready for the visitors and basically they will sit around and chat for hours. Various people will pop in, seemingly at random, then it’s your turn to go visiting.

Lucky Money: People who are not yet married can expect to receive little red envelopes filled with lucky money. The amount of money can range from 10 yuan to 1000 yuan or more, depending on the closeness of the relationship and the affluence of the giver. Once you’re married, it’s your turn to do the giving, although your children will then receive lucky money from other people.

Cleansing: In the days leading up to New Year’s Eve, people will clean their houses thoroughly, so they can start the new year fresh and clean. People decorate their homes with posters and phrases which are thought to bring good luck. New clothes are bought for children. Basically, all of this is to ensure a fresh start to the new year, which is thought to be lucky.

New Year’s Eve TV: On New Year’s Eve, CCTV broadcasts a TV program which is watched by hundreds of millions of people. It is basically a variety act, with singing and dancing, comedy acts, etc. Expect acts representing all 56 of China’s ethnic nationalities. This will be on in most households.

What I’ll Be Doing This Spring Festival

We were supposed to spend this Spring Festival with family, but the terrible weather meant we couldn’t travel. So we’ll be having a quiet one in front of the TV, eating lots of food and watching fireworks out the window.

Final Thoughts

This is just Spring Festival, from my point of view. If you want to find out more about Spring Festival, there are hundreds of sites on the Internet. Wikipedia’s Chinese New Year page is probably a good place to start.

Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, Happy Chinese New Year! Or as they say here, Xin nian kuai le (新年快乐)!

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Tags: culture, customs, New Year, Spring Festival

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.