The Chinese new year
Today is the first day of 2015, which is commonly known as the new years day. It is the start of the year as well as the new page of everyone’s life. However, to Chinese people the first of January is the calendar new year, and the new year in Chinese culture is on another day.
Ancient Chinese use two types of calendars to record dates: the solar calendar which is the international calendar we use today and the lunisolar calendar that also called Chinese calendar. Our ancestors record traditional holidays and important dates in this calendar, so the Chinese new year is at the years beginning on the day with the dark moon near the Vernal Commences. This involves some calculations, hence the date is not fixed for spring festival, but it is normally between January and February. For example, the Chinese new year in 2015 is on 19th of February and in 2014 it was on 31st of January. Since modern Chinese do not use this calendar frequently, so many of them even need to goggle for every year’s spring festival date.
Chinese celebrate their new year day in various ways. The fireworks take the essential role in their celebration. Besides the beautiful fireworks, the adults prefer the traditional Chinese firecracker. These are the combinations of many small crackers around two inches and with a total length at two to ten meters. It creates tremendous amount of noise and smoke when set off, because it was designed to scare off the fictional monster ‘Nian’ that will arrive and eat children in the new years day. In addition, Chinese people will watch the dragon and lion dance, pray to gods in the temple, start a dragon boat race in the river, and many other parades on the Chinese new year. We might have seen these activities around the China town, but the scale in China is much larger. The Chinese will swarm to a festival market called ‘Miao Hui’ which was originally a temple fair because in Chinese history only the surroundings of a temple would have the sufficient space for the market. People simply enjoy themselves at the market. There are plenty of delicious snacks such as sugar man, special Chinese new year cake and ice sugar gourd, etc. Another popular commodity is the kite. You can always find the kiting competition undergoing. Furthermore, families and relatives gather up just like Christmas, they will have a gourmet feast and watch the CCTV spring festival gala on TV. Everyone will stay awake until twelve o’clock, then it the the children's favorite time. Kid is going to receive a red envelope from the senior member in the family, normally their grandparents. Not like Christmas present, the red packet will have the pocket money inside. Although the red envelope is in a different form of a present, the good will form parents are valued the same.
At last, I wish everyone can have a great start at the beginning of 2015, and hope you can have an opportunity to join Chinese at their spring festival on 19th February.
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