Chinese New Year is a traditional festival with a long history. It is the most important holiday for Chinese people, thus much attention has been paid to it since ancient times. Its preparation starts seven days before Chinese New Year’s Eve, from the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month.
The following shows you the schedule for the interesting festivities and customs during the festival. The dates are listed according to lunar calendar.
Dec. 23rd (Jan. 28, 2019)
In Chinese traditional culture, the Kitchen God will report to the Jade Emperor about the daily affairs of each family. Based on the report, the Jade Emperor will decide whether or not to reward this family. People will sacrifice candy, water, beans to the Kitchen God to flatter him, so that he can report good things about the family. As a result, the Jade Emperor may not punish the family, which can live safe and sound during the next year. On the Festival's Eve, the Kitchen God will go back to the human’s world, so he will get a warm welcome from human beings. After this sacrifice on this day, the ancestors will be worshipped by the whole family, and the sacrifice remains in place till December 30.
Dec. 24th (Jan. 29, 2019)
Cleaning is done on this day. All vessels, curtains, beddings and every corner need to be cleaned, and people hope to welcome the festival in a clean environment. In Chinese, cleaning the dust means driving away the old things.
|Making Bean Curd |
Dec. 25th (Jan. 30, 2019)
In some places, bean curd will be made on this day. It is said that the Jade Emperor will come to inspect the human world to check whether the report from the Kitchen God is true. In order to testify that what the Kitchen God said is true, people eat cheap bean curd to show the Jade Emperor that they are thrifty and they live a poor life. Thus they can avoid punishment from the Jade Emperor.
Dec. 26th (Jan. 31, 2019)
In ancient China, most of the common people lived a poor life and could only eat pork during this festival. So on this day, butchering pigs fed by every family or purchasing pork was the most main activity; as a result, they could reserve the pork for the festival. Although modern people can eat meat in daily life, people still like to buy meat on this day to keep to the tradition.
|Shopping the Festival |
Dec. 27th (Feb. 1, 2019)
Shopping is the most important activity on this day. People will purchase fireworks, couplets, toys and so on. They also buy new clothes for the next year. In the folk custom, people will also have baths and wash all the clothes in the hope, of removing the bad luck from the previous year.
Dec. 28th (Feb. 2, 2019)
Making steamed breads and pasting the paper-cuts
are done on this day. People will prepare the food for all the days from the starting of Chinese New Year (Jan. 1 according to lunar calendar) to Lantern Festival (Jan. 15), for in old times, nothing could be bought during that period. Also on this day, people will decorate the rooms by pasting paper-cuts on the windows.
Although now the supermarkets or shopping centers are still open and people can easily purchase anything during the holiday, it is still a habit for people to prepare various kinds of food before the festival, especially in the rural areas.
Dec. 29th (Feb. 3, 2019)
On this day, people will worship ancestors at their tombs.
Dec. 30th (Feb. 4, 2019 - New Year’s Eve)
|Spring Festival Couplets |
This is the most important and cheerful day. People will paste the Spring Festival Couplets, Gods of Gates and Chinese New Year pictures. Even though, modern people seldom do these things in time order as ancient people did, they still keep the custom of pasting the couplets. When all couplets are pasted, the festive atmosphere will be filled in every corner in China.
Reunion Dinner, Chinese New Year TV gala and staying up all night on its Eve are also traditional customs. Similar to the Christmas Dinner in western countries, the Reunion Dinner has significant meaning to Chinese people, because it is the time that all family members reunite together. With the reun