Chinese New Year

The History
The Chinese New Year (also called Spring Festival), has more than 4,000 years of history and it is the grandest and the most important festival for Chinese people. Grab this chance to get together with your family and friends to celebrate the advent of spring and learn more about this fascinating Chinese tradition!

Originating during the Shang Dynasty (about 17th – 11th century BC), the Chinese calendar works according a specific combination of solar and lunar calendar, based on rather complex astronomical calculations, including the longitude of the sun. It always falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice and in 2017, Chinese New Year Day falls on January 27th. Being China’s major traditional holiday, and is also celebrated in other parts of Southeast Asia, including Vietnam (where New Year’s Day is called “Tet”), Malaysia, Taiwan, and of course, Hong Kong.

A fascinating legend holds that the Chinese New Year began with a struggle against an ancient mythical beast called the Nián (年), who would come on the first day of the New Year to eat children, livestock, and crops. In order to protect themselves from the Nián, villages put food offers on their doorsteps believing that the creature would eat them and leave everything else alone. And since it was also believed that the Nián was afraid of the color red, noise and fire, people would hang red lanterns outside and set off firecrackers all night long. On New Year’s eve you will be able to enjoy the amazing view of the entire city lit up by spectacular fireworks which keep exploding all night long until dawn from any rooftop terrace of Beijing.

Starting from 1949, under the rule of Mao Zedong, the government forbade the celebration of the traditional Chinese New Year and started following the Gregorian calendar. But at the end of the 20th century, Chinese leaders were more inclined to embrace again the Chinese tradition and so in 1996, a week-long vacation was instituted during the holiday–now called Spring Festival in order to give people the opportunity to travel home and to celebrate the New Year.

The Tradition

As early as 14th century B.C. (Shang Dynasty), the ancient Chinese calendar, on which the Chinese New Year is based, worked as a religious, dynastic and social guide and the holiday was a time to honor household and heavenly deities as well as ancestors. During this time, business life came nearly to a stop, homes were thoroughly cleaned to rid them of Huìqì (晦气) or inauspicious breaths from the old year and cleaning was also meant to appease the gods who would be coming down from heaven to make inspections. People also used to offer ritual sacrifices of food and paper icons to gods and ancestors and household gates were decorated with lanterns and scrolls printed with lucky auspices.

Elders gave out money to children in red paper envelopes called hóngbāo (红包). You might have noticed how the greeting cards section of every Chinese shop is now filled with shiny red envelopes decorated in gold and carrying messages of good luck and prosperity. Chinese kids look forward to it in the same way your kids wait for Santa carrying presents at Christmas Eve, and families save for months to prepare for the exchange of the hongbao. Today the rites of the holiday no longer hold their original religious value and for some members of the younger generation the holiday has evolved from an opportunity to renew family ties to a chance for relaxation from work. Yet, people remained sensitive to the fascinating traditions associated to the New Year and to the Chinese zodiac, the cycle of twelve stations or “signs” along the apparent path of the sun through the cosmos. Each New Year is marked by the characteristics of one of the 12 zodiacal animals: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. 2016, after the previous  year of the Monkey, is a year of the Rooster (鸡 jī).

Legend has it that in ancient times, God asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year. Twelve came, and God named a year after each one. He announced that the people born in each animal’s year would have some of that animal’s personality. Those born in rooster years are often wise, charming, high self-esteem ,sensitive, and organized.
The Year of the Rooster is associated with the 10th Earthly Branch symbol, 酉 (yŏu) and to many other features. So keep this in mind if you want to preserve your lucky charm this year!

Lucky Colors: Yellow, white, red
Year of Birth: 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017
Lucky months: March, July, December
Lucky Numbers: 2,6

The Food
Food is the cornerstone of the New Year’s celebrations. Chinese New Year is an opportunity to honor family and friends, and to enjoy some culinary traditions which ensure an auspicious beginning to the lunar New Year. Each individual dish is steeped in tradition and is a homonym for a particular wish in the upcoming year. Here some typical dishes and a recipe for the most traditional New Year’s Eve dinner:

Tangerines and Oranges. Displaying and eating these fruits is said to bring wealth and luck. In fact, the Chinese for orange (and tangerine) is 橙 (chéng), which sounds the same as the Chinese for ‘success‘ (成 chéng). One of the ways of writing tangerine (桔 jú) contains the Chinese character for luck (吉 jí ), which people usually say 大吉大利 (dà jí dà lì) means lots of good luck.

Longevity Noodles 长寿面 chángshòu miàn. Long noodles embody the concept of longevity. They are usually served uncut and boiled, fried or in soup with meat and vegetables.

Fish 鱼 yú. The key to this dish is to serve the fish whole with head and tail intact to represent a good beginning and a good end for the coming year. Serving fish this way is also supposed to symbolize wealth, as the Chinese word for fish, ‘Yú,’ sounds like the word for abundance. Chinese people always like to have a surplus at the end of the year, because they think if they have managed to save something at the end of the year, then they can make more in the next year. When you meet your Chinese friend, you can say nián nián yŏu yú(年年有余) to wish them a fortune year.

Rice Cake 年糕 niángāo. The tradition of eating rice cake goes back 3,000 years. The Chinese word for rice cake, or niángāo 年糕, correlates to the phrase “年年高升, nián nián gāoshēng ” which means “increasing prosperity year after year.” Eating rice cakes also celebrates the beginning of the rice harvest in the spring. The steamed sweets are made of glutinous rice flour, brown sugar, and oil. Some versions have white sesame seeds, red dates, or nuts in them.

Spring Roll 春卷 chūnjuǎn. Spring roll is a Cantonese dim sum dish that’s named after the Spring Festival. The words chūnjuǎn 春卷 literally mean spring and roll. The golden color and the shape of the fried spring rolls represent gold bars – which, of course, symbolize wealth.

Dumplings 餃子 jiǎozi. This dish is particularly traditional for the lunar New Year as the shape of the dumplings are said to resemble old ingot-shaped coins (元宝, yuánbǎo). As such, the dumplings are meant to bring eaters prosperity and wealth. It’s tradition to eat them at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and hide a clean coin inside one of the dumplings.

Legend has it that the more dumplings you eat during New Year celebration, the more money you can make in the upcoming cycle. Please download this PDF and check out the Dumplings recipe we selected for you!

What to do

The Beijing local people will go to the temple fairs, especially the one at the Temple of the Earth (地坛dì tán).

The temple fair at the Temple of the Earth has 31 years of history and this year will start from  28th January till 1st February. With 10RMB for the ticket, you can get to know how Beijing local people celebrate their Chinese New Year.

At the temple fair, you can get to watch some shows which are very Chinese style such as opera, lantern show, flower market, Chinese paper cutting and so on.

Also don’t forget to taste some traditional Chinese snacks such as táng hú lu (糖葫芦), this is a very traditional sweet that is popular among the children and adults.  The fruits are covered with the syrup and skewered with bamboo stick, so be careful while you taste it at the fair.

If you are willing to try something unusual, maybe stinky tofu (臭豆腐chòu dò fu) is a good choice. It’s smelly and looking terrible, but for the Chinese, it tastes delicious. The reason for it’s smell is that stinky tofu is a fermented product and in the past, only the royal family can eat it.

Sweet pea purée (wān dòu huáng豌豆黄) is a must treat you have to try. It’s a symbol of Beijing local treats also a sign of Spring is coming. Recently it’s very hard to find at the temple fair due to the hygiene policy but you still can try it at the Beijing cuisine restaurant.

After the temple fair you can enjoy watching the sunset at JingShan Park(景山公园) if the weather is good.

Some of the Chinese people will head to the Lama Temple (雍和宫 yōng hé gōng) and to pray for good luck, a smooth and fortune new year.

What to say to your Chinese friend

So when you see your Chinese friend or colleagues, you can say:

xīn nián kuài lè (新年快乐 happy new year)

gōng xǐ fā cái (恭喜发财 wish you lots of wealth)

wàn shì rú yì (万事如意 everything is at your wish)