Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is the most important festival in China. It is the time where families reunite and celebrate the start o a new year. Every year is the year of a zodiac animal, and the animals change every year. The zodiac animals in order are: Rat,Ox,Tiger,Rabbit,Fragon,Snake,Horse,Goat,Monkey,Rooster,Dog,Pig. This year (2016) is the year of the Monkey.
The date of the Chinese New Year changes every year because the Chinese follow the Lunar calendar. Chinese New Year is day one of the first month o the Lunar calendar. In 2016, Chinese New Year begins on the 8th of Febraury and ends on the 22nd of February. It is an official public holiday, and most Chinese people get 7 days off of work.
Before the big celebration, Chinese people would prepare by thouroughly cleaning the house and it is called 'sweeping the dust'. Cleaning the house represents saying goodbye to the old year and welcoming the new year. Popular decorations include fancy cut-outs, red traditional lanterns, kumquat trees and couplets. The most popular decoration is an upside down good forturne sign called 'fu', and has been used for many years. The tradition of the upside down good fortune sign was from a mistake, as a family hung their good luck sign upside down by accident and a neighbor corrected them say "your fu is upside down" and in Chinese upside down also means 'pour out' so they misunderstood and thought the neighbour said "your fu is pouring out" which means your luck is pouring out.
On the day of the celebration, families get together and reunite over dinner. Some of the popular foods that are eaten on Chinese New Year are fish, dumplings and noodles. Fish in chinese also sounds like surplus, so peole eat fish to have surplus at the end of the year. Dumplings are eaten because they are in the shape of a gold ingot which represents weath and the noodles represents a long life, and is believed to be lucky when eaten on a special occasion such as Chinese New Year. Adults give the children red envelopes filled with money inside for good luck, and the envelopes are red because red is China's lucky color and red is also used to scare the monster Nian so the money inside is called 'lucky money'. After dinner, the whole amily would usually go outside to watch a lion dancing show and light firecrackers.
The legend of the monster 'Nian' is a very important part of Chinese New Year. before, the monster used to eat people and the crops in China but the survivors found a way to ward off the monster by setting off fireworks and putting up red because the color scared the monster. This is why it is a tradition to set off fireworks and decorate the house red on Chinese New Year.
Chinese New Year is the most important festival in China. It is the time where families reunite and celebrate the start o a new year. Every year is the year of a zodiac animal, and the animals change every year. The zodiac animals in order are: Rat,Ox,Tiger,Rabbit,Fragon,Snake,Horse,Goat,Monkey,Rooster,Dog,Pig. This year (2016) is the year of the Monkey.
The date of the Chinese New Year changes every year because the Chinese follow the Lunar calendar. Chinese New Year is day one of the first month o the Lunar calendar. In 2016, Chinese New Year begins on the 8th of Febraury and ends on the 22nd of February. It is an official public holiday, and most Chinese people get 7 days off of work.
Before the big celebration, Chinese people would prepare by thouroughly cleaning the house and it is called 'sweeping the dust'. Cleaning the house represents saying goodbye to the old year and welcoming the new year. Popular decorations include fancy cut-outs, red traditional lanterns, kumquat trees and couplets. The most popular decoration is an upside down good forturne sign called 'fu', and has been used for many years. The tradition of the upside down good fortune sign was from a mistake, as a family hung their good luck sign upside down by accident and a neighbor corrected them say "your fu is upside down" and in Chinese upside down also means 'pour out' so they misunderstood and thought the neighbour said "your fu is pouring out" which means your luck is pouring out.
On the day of the celebration, families get together and reunite over dinner. Some of the popular foods that are eaten on Chinese New Year are fish, dumplings and noodles. Fish in chinese also sounds like surplus, so peole eat fish to have surplus at the end of the year. Dumplings are eaten because they are in the shape of a gold ingot which represents weath and the noodles represents a long life, and is believed to be lucky when eaten on a special occasion such as Chinese New Year. Adults give the children red envelopes filled with money inside for good luck, and the envelopes are red because red is China's lucky color and red is also used to scare the monster Nian so the money inside is called 'lucky money'. After dinner, the whole amily would usually go outside to watch a lion dancing show and light firecrackers.
The legend of the monster 'Nian' is a very important part of Chinese New Year. before, the monster used to eat people and the crops in China but the survivors found a way to ward off the monster by setting off fireworks and putting up red because the color scared the monster. This is why it is a tradition to set off fireworks and decorate the house red on Chinese New Year.
kinda hard to read.
ReplyDeleteI found a way to fix it, the weird highlights are gone now :)
DeleteI love this Amy! There is so much information that I didn't know of before! I love how you listed all the animals of each year and I think that 'upside down good fortune sign called fu' was really interesting. It was hard to read at first but I copied and pasted it into pages so that I could read it and it was great. Good job!
ReplyDeleteAmy this is a excellent blog, I learnt a lot of information from this. Good job, the content is very accurate. Thanks for tell us the time of next Chinese New Year!
ReplyDelete