Dear Pals,
Gong Xi Fat Chai, Wan Xe Ju Ie
Wish you all have a prosperous Chinese New Year
Best Regards,
Feni
With Great Sounds
Special 4 You, hope you can tell to children before giving them angpau :)
The Chinese New Year has a great history. In our past, people lived in an
agricultural society and worked all year long. They only took a break after the
harvest and before the planting of seeds. This happens to coincide with the
beginning of the lunar New Year. The Chinese New Year is very similar to the
Western one, rich in traditions, folklores and rituals. It has been said that
it is a combination of the Western Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. This
is hardly an exaggeration! The origin of the Chinese New Year itself is
centuries old - in fact, too old to actually be traced. It is popularly
recognized as the Spring Festival and celebrations last 15 days.
Preparations tend to begin a month before the date of the Chinese New Year
(similar to a Western Christmas). During this time people start buying
presents, decoration materials, food and clothing. A huge clean-up gets
underway days before the New Year, when Chinese houses are cleaned from top to
bottom. This ritual is supposed to sweep away all traces of bad luck. Doors and
windowpanes are often given a new coat of paint, usually red, then decorated
with paper cuts and couplets with themes such as happiness, wealth and
longevity printed on them. The eve of the New Year is perhaps the most exciting
part of the holiday, due to the anticipation. Here, traditions and rituals are
very carefully observed in everything from food to clothing. Dinner is usually
a feast of seafood and dumplings, signifying different good wishes. Delicacies
include prawns, for liveliness and happiness, dried oysters ( ho xi), for all
things good, fish dishes or Yau-Yu to bring good luck and prosperity, Fai-chai
(Angel Hair), an edible hair-like seaweed to bring prosperity, and dumplings
boiled in water (Jiaozi) signifying a long-lasting good wish for a family. It
is customary to wear something red as this colour is meant to ward off evil
spirits. But black and white are frowned upon, as these are associated with
mourning. After dinner, families sit up for the night playing cards, board
games or watching television programmes dedicated to the occasion. At midnight,
fireworks light up the sky.
On the day itself, an ancient custom called Hong Bao, meaning Red Packet,
takes place. This involves married couples giving children and unmarried adults
money in red envelopes. Then the family begins to say greetings from door to
door, first to their relatives and then to their neighbours. Like the Western
saying "let bygones be bygones," at Chinese New Year, grudges are very easily
cast aside. Tributes are made to ancestors by burning incense and the symbolic
offering of foods. As firecrackers burst in the air, evil spirits are scared
away by the sound of the explosions. The end of the New Year is marked by the
Festival of Lanterns, which is a celebration with singing, dancing and lantern
shows. At the Festival, all traditions are honored. The predominant colors are
red and gold. "Good Wish" banners are hung from the ceilings and walls. The
"God of Fortune" is there to give Hong Baos. Lion dancers perform on stage
continuously. Visitors take home plants and flowers symbolizing good luck. An
array of New Years specialty food is available in the Food Market. Visitors
purchase new clothing, shoes and pottery at the Market Fair. Bargaining for the
best deal is commonplace!
The Chinese New Year is now popularly known as the Spring Festival because
it starts from the Begining of Spring (the first of the twenty-four terms in
coordination with the changes of Nature). Its origin is too old to be traced.
Several explanations are hanging around. All agree, however, that the word
Nian, which in modern Chinese solely means "year", was originally the name of a
monster beast that started to prey on people the night before the beginning of
a new year (Do not lose track here: we are talking about the new year in terms
of the Chinese calendar). One legend goes that the beast Nian had a very big
mouth that would swallow a great many people with one bite. People were very
scared. One day, an old man came to their rescue, offering to subdue Nian. To
Nian he said, "I hear say that you are very capable, but can you swallow the
other beasts of prey on earth instead of people who are by no means of your
worthy opponents?" So, swollow it did many of the beasts of prey on earth that
also harrassed people and their domestic animals from time to time. After that,
the old man disappeared riding the beast Nian. He turned out to be an immortal
god. Now that Nian is gone and other beasts of prey are also scared into
forests, people begin to enjoy their peaceful life. Before the old man left, he
had told people to put up red paper decorations on their windows and doors at
each year's end to scare away Nian in case it sneaked back again, because red
is the color the beast feared the most.
From then on, the tradition of observing the conquest of Nian
is carried on from generation to generation. The term "Guo Nian", which may
mean "Survive the Nian" becomes today "Celebrate the (New) Year" as the word
"guo" in Chinese having both the meaning of "pass-over" and "observe". The
custom of putting up red paper and firing fire-crackers to scare away Nian
should it have a chance to run loose is still around. However, people today
have long forgotten why they are doing all this, except that they feel the
color and the sound add to the excitement of the celebration. The Chinese New
Year Festival is the most significant holiday for Chinese people around the
world, regardless of the origin of their ancestors. It is also known as the
Lunar New Year Festival because it is based on the lunar calendar as opposed to
the Gregorian calendar. The holiday is a very jubilant occasion mainly because
it is the time when people take a break from work to get together with family
and friends.
The origin of the Chinese New Year Festival can be traced
back thousands of years through a continually evolving series of colorful
legends and traditions. One of the most famous legends is that of Nien, an
extremely cruel and ferocious beast, which the Chinese believe, eats people on
New Year's Eve. To keep Nien away, red-paper couplets are pasted on doors,
torches are lit, and firecrackers are set off throughout the night, because
Nien is said to fear the color red, the light of fire, and loud noises. Early
the next morning, as feelings of triumph and renewal fill the air at
successfully keeping Nien away for another year, the most popular greeting
heard is kung-hsi, or "congratulations". Even though Chinese New Year
celebrations generally only last for several days, starting on New Year's Eve,
the festival itself is actually about three weeks long. It begins on the
twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, the day, it is believed, when
various gods ascend to heaven to pay their respects and report on household
affairs to the Jade Emperor, the supreme Taoist deity. According to tradition,
households busily honor these gods by burning ritualistic paper money to
provide for their traveling expenses. Another ritual is to smear malt sugar on
the lips of the Kitchen God, one of the traveling deities, to ensure that he
either submits a favorable report to the Jade Emperor or keeps silent.
Next, "spring couplets" are hung up around the house. Spring
couplets are paper scrolls and squares inscribed with blessings and auspicious
words, such as "good fortune," "wealth," "longevity," and "springtime." The
paper squares are usually pasted upside down, because the Mandarin Chinese word
for "upside down," tao, is a homonym of the word "arrival." Thus, the paper
squares represent the "arrival" of spring and the "coming" of prosperous times.
On lunar New Year's Eve, family members who are no longer living at home make a
special effort to return home for reunion and share in a sumptuous meal. At
that time, family members hand out "lucky money" in red envelopes to elders and
children and stay up all night to welcome the New Year. Chinese people have
long believed that staying awake all night on New Year's Eve would help their
parents to live a longer life. Thus, lights are kept on the entire night--not
just to drive away Nien, as in ancient times, but also as an excuse to make the
most of the family get-together. Some families even hold religious ceremonies
after midnight to welcome the God of the New Year into their homes, a ritual
that is often concluded with a huge barrage of firecrackers.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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