Introduce Chinese Festivals

Introduce Chinese Festivals

Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance.

This day's important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha's body, and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, so he ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.

Guessing lantern riddles\an essential part of the Festival. Lantern owners write riddles on a piece of paper and post them on the lanterns. If visitors have solutions to the riddles, they can pull the paper out and go to the lantern owners to check their answer. If they are right, they will get a little gift. The activity emerged during people's enjoyment of lanterns in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). As riddle guessing is interesting and full of wisdom, it has become popular among all social strata.

People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also called the \balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as filling. Tangyuan can be boiled, fried or steamed. It tastes sweet and delicious. What's more, tangyuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation with \meaning reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.

The Spring Festival

The most important holiday in China is the Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year. To the Chinese people， it is as important as Christmas to the West. The date for this annual celebration is determined by the lunar calendar rather than the Gregorian/solar calendar, so the timing of the holiday varies from late January to early February.

Preparations for the New Year begin on the final days of the last lunar month, when most families clean their houses, pay their debts, cut their hair and buy new clothes. Almost every family will paste spring couplets on their doors. People also burn incense at home or in the temples to pay respect to their ancestors and to pray to the gods for a safe and happy life.

On New Year’s Eve, all the members of families come together to hold feasts. Jiaozi

is popular in the North, while southerners favor a sticky sweet glutinous rice pudding called “Niangao”. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, people set off firecrackers to drive away the evil spirits and to greet the arrival of a new year.

The Lantern Festival

On the 15th day of the 1st month of the lunar calendar is the Lantern Festival. It normally falls at the end of February. In the evening, people traditionally come out to see various lanterns in the streets or parks and eat round, sweet rice-flour dumplings that are called Tangyuan in China.

The Qingming Festival

Normally the Qingming Festival falls on April 5, and is a time to remember the dead, when people traditionally go to visit the tombs of their ancestors. On this day, in Beijing, schoolchildren lay wreaths of flowers before the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tian’anmen Square in memory of martyrs who died for the country.

The National Day

The National Day celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Celebrations usually take the form of parties in amusement parks in the daytime and firework display during the evening. During this time, people can enjoy 3 paid-days off.

The Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival falls in May on the lunar calendar, is in memory of Qu Yuan, a great patriotic poet of the State of Chu during the Warring Sates Period(475 B.C.—221 B.C.). Qu Yuan drowned himself to demonstrate his protest against his fatuous king. In order to protect his body from being eaten by fish, people threw rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves into the river. Nowadays, people still eat Zongzi (the rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves) to remember him, and the dragon boat contests enjoy great popularity.

The Moon Festival

On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the moon is especially round. On this day the Chinese people celebrate the Moon (or Mid-Autumn ) Festival. To the Chinese, the round shape of the moon represents family reunion. The Moon Festival is therefore a holiday for members of families to get together wherever it is possible. Sometimes people who have settled overseas will come back to visit their parents on that day. During the Festival, people eat moon cakes, a kind of cookies filled with

sugar, fat, peanuts, walnuts, preserved egg yokes, ham or other ingredients.

Double Ninth Festival

The 9th day of the 9th lunar month is the traditional Chongyang Festival, or Double Ninth Festival. It usually falls in October in the Gregorian calendar. In an ancient and mysterious book Yi Jing, or The Book of Changes, number \Yin character, meaning feminine or negative, while number \was thought to be Yang, meaning masculine or positive. So the number nine in both month and day create the Double Ninth Festival, or Chongyang Festival. Chong in Chinese means \Also, as double ninth was pronounced the same as the word to signify \both are \Jiu,\the Chinese ancestors considered it an auspicious day worth celebration. That's why ancient Chinese began to celebrate this festival long time ago.

The custom of ascending a height to avoid epidemics was passed down from long time ago. Therefore, the Double Ninth Festival is also called \Ascending Festival\The height people will reach is usually a mountain or a tower. Ancient literary figures have left many poems depicting the activity. Even today, people still swarm to famous or little known mountains on this day

In 1989, the Chinese government decided the Double Ninth Festival as Seniors' Day. Since then, all government units, organizations and streets communities will organize an autumn trip each year for those who have retired from their posts. At the waterside or on the mountains, the seniors will find themselves merged into nature. Younger generations will bring elder ones to suburban areas or send gifts to them on this day.

Winter Solstice Festival

As early as 2,500 years ago, about the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), China had determined the point of Winter Solstice by observing movements of the sun with a sundial. It is the earliest of the 24 seasonal division points. The time will be each December 22 or 23 according to the Gregorian calendar.

The Northern hemisphere on this day experiences the shortest daytime and longest nighttime. After the Winter Solstice, days will become longer and longer. As ancient Chinese thought, the yang, or muscular, positive things will become stronger and stronger after this day, so it should be celebrated.

In some parts of Northern China, people eat dumpling soup on this day; while residents of some other places eat dumplings, saying doing so will keep them from frost in the upcoming winter. But in parts of South China, the whole family will get together to have a meal made of red-bean and glutinous rice to drive away ghosts and other evil things. In other places, people also eat tangyuan, a kind of stuffed small dumpling ball made of glutinous rice flour. The Winter Solstice rice dumplings could be used as sacrifices to ancestors, or gifts for friends and relatives. The Taiwan people even keep the custom of offering nine-layer cakes to their ancestors. They make cakes in the shape of chicken, duck, tortoise, pig, cow or sheep with glutinous rice flour and steam them on different layers of a pot. These animals all signify auspiciousness in

Chinese tradition. People of the same surname or family clan gather at their ancestral temples to worship their ancestors in age order. After the sacrificial ceremony, there is always a grand banquet.