1 The Spring and Yuanxiao Festivals

The Spring Festival (also known as Lunar New Year or Chunjie) is on the 1st day of the 1st month in the Chinese calendar year. It is the biggest and also the most important festival for the Chinese.

During the Spring Festival, there are a few things everyone does: lighting firecrackers, placing blessings on the wall, and blessing each other. These traditional practices have been kept till today. It was said that, a monster called Nian brought about all these activities. Back in the ancient times, at the end of every year, the very hungry Nian would invade villages, killing the animals raised by families and even harming people's lives. People tried all sorts of methods to counter this threat and to expel it. Gradually people realised that it was afraid of noises and the colour red, therefore on the New Year's Eve, everyone wrote blessings on red paper and placed them on their front doors, and lit firecrackers to produce noise. That turned out to be successful and everyone was happily greeting each other and wishing each other the best of luck for the coming year. This became a custom and was passed along for generations since then.

The Chinese character “Nian” itself means that crops are ready to be harvested. It is a combination of two single characters, “grains”and “thousand”, so the blend of the two characters means a very rich harvest. In the old days, after a year's hard work in the fields, people would prepare wine and delicious food for a rich feast with the family to celebrate the year's harvest and the arrival of a new year, so this was the most important and the happiest day in a year. Eventually it evolved into an important festival.

In different parts of China, the celebrations might differ slightly, but they all have a common theme: See off the old and welcome the new. Nowadays, before the Lunar New Year, families are busy stocking up on special foods for the New Year and decorating their homes so that they would look new to welcome a new year. On New Year's Day, people will wear new clothes to visit relatives and friends to give them blessings. In cities and towns, some people queue up to visit temples, some take part in carnivals, others perform dragon dances and in most places, there are fireworks displays.

In the 1st month of the Chinese calendar year, except for the Chinese New Year, there is another festival called the Yuanxiao Festival. It is on the 15th day of the month. In the past, people hung paper lanterns and everyone went out at night to look at the lanterns on this day. As you can imagine, the sight of different lanterns on the street at night is a very beautiful scene. Nowadays, with the increasing influence of Western culture, and probably because of the beautiful and romantic scene of lanterns as well, another meaning has been added to the Yuanxiao Festival -- it is now also known as the Chinese Valentine's Day.

Yuanxiao lanterns

Yuanxiao Festival actually started way back in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 23 AD). At that time, there was a maid in the imperial palace named Yuanxiao. She felt bored and homesick being trapped in the imperial palace, so she wanted to commit suicide by jumping down a well. A man who was very famous for his intelligence, named Dongfang Shuo, learnt this and felt sorry for Yuanxiao, so he tried to think of a way to help her. A few days later, he dressed up as a fortune-teller and wandered around in the town. People came up to him and asked for help. Everyone got the same response -- they would be burnt by fire on the 15th day of the first month. This made them panic. The news got through to the emperor, and the emperor decided to ask the most intelligent man --yes, Dongfang himself -- for a solution.

Dongfang told the emperor that the God of Fire loved dumplings a lot. Therefore he suggested that the emperor could ask Yuanxiao to offer some dumplings to the God of Fire and worship him. Then everyone should go out on to the streets that night, and light numerous red lanterns on every house and every street. He explained that the city would appear to be on fire, if looked down from heaven, and this would confuse the God of Fire and make him think that he had already set the fire. The emperor agreed with this and ordered everyone to do as he suggested.

That day finally came, and the city was fully alive that night, everyone was wandering around the streets and Yuanxiao got a chance to meet up with her family too. The night passed peacefully as well. The emperor was delighted and he ordered to keep this ritual forever on this day of every year from then on.

Gradually, in time, more activities have been added rather to just appreciating lanterns. For example, riddles are tied to the lanterns, so while appreciating the beautiful lanterns, people can also try to solve the riddles. Apart from the lanterns, another thing which must be present on that day is a kind of dumplings made of flour. These dumplings are in a round shape, which resemble the shape of a full moon. (In the Chinese calendar year, it is always a full moon on the 15th day of each month.) The Chinese believe that a full moon symbolises the reunion of a family, so on that day, every family member will sit together and enjoy the dumplings.