How to Celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year

Happy Lunar New Year! The Chinese New Year 2018, the Year of the dog had its start. As these festive days, also called Spring Festival, are calculated after the lunar calendar (the date differs from the date of the actual new year.) It is celebrated in many parts of East-Asia as the most important holiday of the year, which means there are a lot of really interesting customs to discover. So how is the Chinese New Year celebrated?

Family Time: The Holidays are the time for family reunions, which means many people are going to rush to their parental homes, or expecting their relatives to come to celebrate this event together.

Cleaning: Before the New Years starts, it is common to clean the house, to wipe away all the badness of the past year. But on New Year there is no cleaning allowed! This is due to the fact, that if you clean up your house and throw out some garbage, you throw out your new luck as well. So this is a No-Go. But it’s not the only one, as there are still plenty other rules to observe. So make sure you inform yourself about those, if you want to ensure a prosperous year.

Time to pray: The holidays are used to pray for a start into a good year, a good harvest, for their ancestors, etc. A visit to the temple is for most Buddhist people also an essential part of starting the New Year.

Red Pocket: The Spring Festival is the happiest event, especially for children. Simply because their parents, grandparents and other adults prepare gifts for them. They receive new clothes, candies and most important- red pockets, which contain some money. This way the adults transfer some good fortune to the younger generation. So I think it’s pretty comprehensible, that children always look forward to this occasion.

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Food: As for the food, there are many different customs in every region. But in every area, people are surely busy preparing a big feast. Of course there are some dishes that shouldn’t be missed at the New Years Eve Dinner. In China for example it is common to have dumplings饺子 (jiǎo zi) or spring rolls春卷 (chūn juǎn) served. Vietnamese families for instance eat Bánh chưng/ bánh tét and in Korea a rice cake soup 떡국(Tteokguk) and전 (Jeon) are common dishes.

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Decoration: In China, spring festival couplets春联 (chūn lián) are fixed alongside the doors of many households to prevent bad spirits to enter their homes. Paper cutting art窗花 (chuāng huā) is also very popular during these holidays. In addition, the word “Fortune“ 福 (fú) is seen on nearly every corner, just to convey everyone’s whish for a lucky year. Above all there are many other decoration fashions in other parts of Asia, for example Hoa đào/ Hoa mai, a Vietnamese man-made New Years tree, which is mostly decorated with origami art, good luck charms, etc.

Red: In this New Year celebrations red is the ruling color, as it represents all kinds of positive characteristics, such as sincerity or happiness. It is believed as well, that red repels bad spirits and bad fortune. So red is the must-have color in every household.

There are many more traditions that I didn’t mention in this post, but the best way to learn about the Spring Festival is to attend one in person, because no report can replace the actual experience of this cheerful cultural act! So I hope you all had a good start into 2018 and have a year full of luck, love, happiness, good health and use the chance to create many wonderful memories to look back on in the next year! I celebrated the Lunar New Year yesterday at the temple with my mum, what about you?

Much love, Lisa