The Spring Festival
The Spring Festival is celebrated by the Han and many othei minority nationalities of
China and overseas Chinese with great joy and happiness on the first day of the first lunar
month. Being the most important festival to Chinese, people have many kinds of
traditional celebrations until the end of the following Lantern Festival
1,1 The Customs of The Spring Festival
The Spring Festival originated from a Chinese term for a sacrificial ceremony held in a
primitive society. People offered sacrifices of grains from farming and of bunting to their
ancestors and to Heaven. It is a token of their gratitude for their bounty and a
manifestation of their wish for a good grain ha~est in the coming year.
During the few days before the Spring Festival comes, varied celebrations such as
dusting (New Year cleaning), pasting Spring Festival couplets and pasting New Year
pictures are held. People also have their hair cut and prepare new clothes and purchase
gifts and goods for the Spring Festival. Houses are festooned with paper couplets. During
the eve, people wait for New Year, paying New Ve~ calls, and performing the Lion and Dragon Dances.
Dusting originated from a religious rite supposed to eliminate epidemic diseases in the
time of the two legendary sage kings Yao and Shun in ancient China. All households
clean their courtyard, their articles of furniture and change their bed sheets from the 24~"
to the end of the 12'h lunar month before tile Spring Festival.
The Spring Festival couplet (doorpost scroll) is to be pasted on doorposts or hall
pillars consisting of two vertical lines and one horizontal lille. All the lines convey the
idea of good luck or jubilation, which constitute a unique form in Chinese literature. The
Spring Festival couplet was born of the peach-wood charm. A legendary story has it that
two brothers named ghen Tu and Yu Lei watered and looked after a big lush peach tree
near their home. The tree was in full bloom in spring and was laden with big peaches in
summer. Some people believed having the peach would help them to be free from
disasters and disease and enable them to live to a ripe old age. The Wild Prince
commanded several hundred soldiers to fight for the tree from the two brothers. ']7he
brothers charged at the enemy, while holding a peach tree branch and grasping a coil of
coir rope. The moment the soldiers touched the branch, they collapsed and allowed
themselves 1o be caught. The incident made people consider peach wood immortal, and
they use it to exorcise spirits and ward off evils. Later on, every household hung two
peach wood strips on two doorposts as peach wood charms on New Year's Eve. The old
strips were to be replacer] with new ones on the next New Year's Eve. People began to
inscribe some auspicious verses conveying their good wishes on peach wood strips in the
Five-dynasty period (907--960). Pasting Spring Festival couplets grew into a popular
folk custom in the Song Dynasty (960--1279). The Spring Festival couplet got its
present name and began to be written on red paper to heighlen the joyous festive air in the
Ming Dynasty (1368--1644)"
A popular Spring Festival custom is to put up pictures of certain favorite motifs on doors
and walls to mark the Spring Festival. The birth of the custom is said to date back to the
times of Yao and Shun periods. She Tu and Yu Lei used to be taken as motifs for the door
pictures to ward off evil spirits. In the Tang Dynasty (618--907), some door pictures
began to bear the images of two generals pasted on the two leafs of a door. The change is
linked to a legend: The Tang emperor Li Shlmin often heard ghosts throwing brick-tile
debris and wailing at night. He could hardly fall asleep because of the noise. His general
Qin Shubao volunteered to keep guard for the emperor with Yuehi Jingde, another general.
One holding a sward and the other having an iron lash in hand, they stood at the gate of the emperor's bedroom. It seemed to the emperor the imperial court became peaceful
Since it was not possible for them to keep guard every night, their images were painted on
the pictures on the bed room door of the emperor. Door pictures began to bew the image~
of the four great beauties of China (Wang Zhaojun, Zhao Feiyan, Diao Chan and Xi Shi)
and the famous national heroes in ancient China ( Yue Fei and Zheng Chenggong),
Today, most door pictures are produced in places such as Yangliuqing Town (west Tianjin
in Hebei Province), Weixian County (Shandong Province) and Taohuawu (Suzhou in
Bangsu Province).
In the past, incense was burnt at home to pay ~spects to ancestors and to get good
wishes from the gods for good health and wealth in the coming year. All members of a
family got together to enjoy themselves through varied entertainments. All rooms we~
illuminated by red candles and decorated by colorful lanterns after the reunion feast. The
sumptuous dinner was followed by an evening of pleasant talk or playing cards and other
games until late into the night. It is called "seeing the year off". These years, members of
a family get together to have a family reunion feast on the Eve and watch special TV
performance programs. Children will light the fi~ crackers. Nowadays, with the
development of the economy, some people prefer to go out traveling in the mainland or
abroad during the Spring Festival. They may stay in the famous Buddhist lemples waiting
to listen to the first sound of the knocking bell at mid-night.
Others prefer to have a family reunion feast in restaurants. Frrtunately, the tradition is
still well kept in most rural areas. If one likes to experience the traditional way of
celebrating the Spring Festival, the best way is to stay with a Chinese family in the
countryside, An members of a family, even those out on business, would have to hurry
back for the family reunion feast on the Eve. Most dishes have good names expressing
the wish of good luck for the following year. For example, in southern China, people
will have New Year cake made of gthtinous rice flour, which has the same pronunciation
of better life in the following year. In northern China, jiaozi (dumpling) is usually on
the menu. The food jiaozi looks like a shoe-shaped silver ingot, the money in ancient
China. The pronunciation of jiaozi means "fertility" in tile coming year. Both kinds of
the food symbolize auspiciousness.dances, lion dances, land-boat rowing, stilt-walking, appreciating lanterns and
shopping.
Another custom during the festival is money given to children by their seniors as a
Lunar New Year gift. It suggests seniors wish to see juniors win success in their future
careers and he healthy in the coming year.
The most popular custom is to set off firecrackers and fireworks~ During the whole
evening and the following days, boys let off all kinds of firecrackers and fireworks. At
the moment the clock strikes twelve on New Year's Eve, countless crackles of
firecrackers will burst reverberatiI~g across the heavens~ The firecrackers (bamboo tubes)
are linked with a tale. A writer named Dongfang Shuo in the Western Han Dynasty wrote
a work Shen Yi Jing. He said a group of small odd pgople lived in the high mountains of
west China in ancient times. They often stole salt from villages when they had sbrimps
and crabs. They only thared sounds of crackles produced by burning bamboo tubes~
Villagers often burned bamboo tubes to frighten them away. Later people burned bamboo
tubes on New Year Eve to exorcise evil spirits. From the Song Dynasty (960--1279),
f recrackers filled with gunpowder were set off. Now the purpose of setting off
~ " ' "w eas o ovrn e s
firecrackers is only to heighten the fesuve air. A fe y r ag , he g e m nt of
some big cities laid down bans on setting off firecrackers beacuses of the injuries and
cousing fires. After the governments of these big cities made efforts to control the injuries
and fires caused by firecrackers, they allowed people to set off firecrackers again from
2006.
Paying New Year calls on venerable seniors and friends is another custom popular in
the Spring Festival. People usually call on their close members of the same clan on the
first day and their remote members of the same clan on the second day, They often visit
their relatives or friends during the next few days. The callers will present the New Year
gifts while they pay New Year cabs. In the cities, people also send e-mail letters or short
messages from their mobile phones or have telephone calls instead~ Some other people
may post cards to their relatives and friends away from them in other cities,
The Chinese dragon in Chinese legend, different from the dragon described in Western
culture, is a miraculous animal. Ancient Chinese Han's ancestors took it as a totem. In
the Spring Festival, people perform the dragon dance to make the air more jubilant.
People also perform the Lion Dance. According to the historical records, it was very
popular in the Han Dynasty. To the accompaniment of drum and gongs, and guided by a
colored silk ball waved by a dancer in a warrior outfit, the lion chases the ball, climbs up and down steps, licks its feet, scratches its ears, rolls about and crosses wooden board
bridge, The dancers make elegant and natural movements in perfect union, adding much
to the joyous festive air.