春节习俗 Customs of the Spring Festival

春

节习

俗

Custom

s of the Spring Festival

The Spring Festival is a traditional Chinese festival and also the m

ost important one of

the whole year. Through the evolvem

ent of thousands of years, a series of custom

s

are spreading far and wide.

扫尘

Sweeping the Dust

“Dust” is hom

ophonic with “chen”（

尘

）

in Chinese, which m

eans old and past. In this

way, “sweeping the dust” before the Spring Festival m

eans a thorough cleaning of

houses to sweep away bad luck in the past year. This custom

shows a good wish of

putting away old things to welcom

e a new life. In a word, just before the Spring Festival

com

es, every household will give a thorough cleaning to bid farewell to the old year

and usher in the new.

贴

春

联

Pasting Spring Couplets

“The Spring Couplet”, also called “couplet” and “a pair of antithetical phrases”, is a

special form of literature in China. The Spring Couplet is com

posed of two antithetical

sentences on both sides of the door and a horizontal scroll bearing an inscription,

usually an auspicious phrase, above the gate. The sentence pasting on the right side

of the door is called the first line of the couplet and the one on the left the second line.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, every household will paste on doors a spring couplet

written on red paper to give a happy and prosperous atm

osphere of the Festival. In the

past, the Chinese usually wrote their own spring couplet with a brush or asked others to

do for them

, while nowadays, it is common for people to buy the printed spring

couplet in the m

arket.

贴

窗花和“福”字

Pasting Paper-

cuts and “Up

-

sided Fu”

Paper-cuts, usually with auspicious patterns, give a happy and prosperous

atm

osphere of the Festival and express the good wishes of Chinese people looking

forward to a good life. In addition to pasting paper-cuts on windows, it is comm

on for

Chinese to paste the character “fu

（福）

”, big and sm

all, on walls, doors and doorposts

around the houses. “Fu（福）” shows people’s yearning toward a good life. Som

e

people even invert the character “fu（福）” to signify that blessing has arrived because

“inverted” is a hom

onym

for “arrive” in Chi

nese. Now m

any kinds of paper-cuts and

“fu（福）” can be seen in the m

arket before the Festival.

守

岁

Staying Up Late on New Year's Eve

The tradition of staying up late to see New Year in originated from

an interesting folk

tale. In ancient China there lived a m

onster named Year, who was very ferocious. Year

always went out from

its burrow on New Year’s Eve to devour people. Therefore, on

every New Year’s Eve, every household would have supper together. After dinner, no

one dared go to sleep and all the fam

ily

m

embers would sit together, chatting and

em

boldening each other. Gradually the habit of staying up late on New Year’s Eve is

form

ed. Thus in China, “celebrating the Spring Festival” is also called “passing over

the year (guo nian)”. However, now there are

less and less people in cities who will

stay up late to see New Year in.

贴

年

画

Pasting New Year Prints

The custom

of pasting New Year Prints originated from

the tradition of placing Door

Gods on the external doors of houses. With the creation of board carvings, New Year

paintings cover a wide range of subjects. The m

ost fam

ous ones are Door Gods,

Surplus Year after Year, Three Gods of Blessing, Salary and Longevity, An Abundant

Harvest of Crops, Thriving Dom

estic Animals and Celebrating Spring. Four producing

areas of New Year Print are T

ɑ

ohu

ɑ

wu of Suzhou, Y

ɑ

ngliuqing of Tianjin, Wuqi

ɑ

ng of

Hebei and Weifang of Shangdong. Now the tradition of pasting New Year paintings is

still kept in rural China, while it is seldom

followed in cities.

吃

饺

子

Having Jiaozi

On New Year’s Eve, the whole fam

ily

will sit together to m

ake jiaozi and celebrate the

Spring Festival. The shape of jiaozi is like gold ingot from

ancient China. So people eat

them

and wish for m

oney and treasure. The tradition of having jiaozi is very im

portant

during the Spring Festival. You cannot have a com

plete Spring Festival without having

jiaozi. (See page 82 for m

ore information about “jiaozi”)

看春

节联欢晚会

The CCTV New Year's Gala

The New Year’s Gala is a variety show held by China Central Television (CCTV) since

1983. For every year since then at the turn of the Lunar New Year, the program begins

at 8:00PM and lasts five or six hours. It brings laughter to billions of people, creates

many popular words and produces lots of TV phenom

ena m

eriting attention. For over

twenty

years, its value has gone far beyond a variety show. It is essential entertainment

for the Chinese both at hom

e and abroad. Many Chinese would like to watch the gala

while having the dinner on New Year’s Eve.

放鞭炮

Setting off Firecrackers

The firecracker is a unique product in China. In ancient China, the sound of burning

bamboo tubes was used to scare away wild animals and evil spirits. With the invention

of the gunpowder, “firecracker” is also called “鞭炮

biānpào” (“炮” in Chinese m

eans

gun) and used to foster a joyful atm

osphere. The first thing every Chinese household

does is to set off firecrackers and fireworks, which are meant to bid farewell to the old

year and usher in the new. In the past few years, such an activity was com

pletely or

partially forbidden in big cities including Beijing due to fire and personal casualty

caused by burning firecrackers. However, som

e Chinese thought that a Spring Festival

without firecrackers was not lively enough and they burned firecrackers by stealth. So

in recent years, the ban was canceled again. This shows that burning firecrackers is a

very important activity during the Spring Festival.