Spring Festival

Spring Festival is the first traditional holiday of the year for Chinese people. In the past, when the Chinese people used the lunar calendar, the Spring Festival was known as the "New Year." It falls on the first day of the first lunar month, the beginning of a new year. After the Revolution of 1911, China adopted the Gregorian calendar. In order to distinguish the lunar New Year from the New Year by the Gregorian calendar, the lunar New Year was called the Spring Festival (which generally falls between the last 10 days of January and mid-February). The Eve of Spring Festival, or the lunar New Year's Eve), is an important time for family reunions. The whole family gets together for a sumptuous dinner. Some families stay up all night, "seeing the old year out." The next morning, people pay New Year calls on relatives and friends, wishing each other good luck. During Spring Festival, various traditional activities are enjoyed in many parts of China, notably lion dances, dragon lantern dances, land-boat rowing and stilt-walking.

Spring Festival to China is like Chrismas to the Christian world.Coming usually in Feberary of Gregorian Calendar, it is on the first day of Chinese lunar year, thus also referred to as Chinese New Year. Not only in China but in some other Asian countries like Singapore,Indonesia and Korea people also celebrate Spring Festival. Several days before Spring Festival, folks begin to do the festival shopping and the cleaning up.The celebration begins right on the Eve of the Festival, when the whole family come and have a dinner together.This meal,always with dumplings,can be quite a sumptuous one, during which the families exchange good wishes for the oncoming year. On that night traditionally, people also stick couplets expressing good wishes around the doorframe and stay up all night.People tend to get up early the next day and visit neibours and relatives, however,nowadays this part is generally being replaced by short message greetings.During Spring Festival People set off firecracks and believe this can help scare off evil spirits and bring good fortune.The grow-ups may give some fortune money to the children, which is often packed in red and symbolizes good luck. The celebration of Spring Festival may commonly last for 7 days, which is highlighted as one of the symbols of traditonal Chinese culture.