Spring Festival ---the first day of Chinese NEW YEAR

     Here, I will write something about the common traditions of Spring Festival.

Sping Festival(Guangzhou)   Firework(广州春节焰火)

     The 23rd day (Jan. 26th) of the 12th lunar month is called Preliminary Eve (祭灶君).On this day, people offer a sacrifice to Zaojun (灶君), the kitchen god. The next day, Zaojun returns to heaven and reports to the gods and so the more generous the sacrifice, the more clement shall be his report. 

 

hanging Duilian (贴对联，贴春晖)

     On the following day (Jan. 28th) people start hanging New Year decorations in their homes and Duilian (对联), which are lines of poetry, around the front door. By this time, the kitchen is the busiest place in the house with fried snacks and sweets being prepared to welcome the return of Zaojun. Until the 30th, families are kept busy with a number of household chores – houses must be cleaned from top to bottom, a tangerine tree purchased and brought into the house, and in south China, people also go to the annual flower markets to buy plants with auspicious names. 

   On Lunar New Year's Eve, all family members meets for dinner (年夜饭) with 9 dishes to symbolize wealth, including an entire fish to represent "completeness." After the meal, traditions differ depending on families. In big cities where firecrackers and fireworks are prohibited, people tend to stay at home and watch TV, whilst in the countryside people are more likely to go out to set-off fireworks and chat with neighbors whilst their children run around with a red lantern and "sell their laziness" (卖懒). 

winter jasmine flower market(迎春花市)

      
On the 2nd day of the New Year (Feb. 4th) married women visit their parents with their husband and children (回娘家). On the 3rd day, families tend to stay at home as quarrels are thought to easily arise on this day (赤口). The 5th is a much more auspicious day as it marks the return of the God of Wealth (接财神). The 7th is considered everybody's birthday (人日) yet few people have time to worry about getting old as most Chinese return to work on the 8th (启市), "eight" being a lucky number for commerce. 

If a member of a family has given birth to a boy in the past 100 days, they are expected to hang a red lantern in front of their house and prepare a large dinner in their ancestral temple on the 10th of the New Year. Nowadays, people tend to invite their relatives to a restaurant instead. 

The Lantern Festival (元宵节) falls on the 15th (Feb. 17) and it marks the end of the Spring Festival season. On that day, people eat Tangyuan (汤圆), a dessert made of sweet glutinous rice.