On Thursday 19th February 2015, China’s huge 1.37 billion-strong population will come together across the country in celebration, seeing in the New Year and wishing one another success and prosperity for the year ahead. Businesses and public services will shut down in respect for this age-old tradition, fireworks will fill the skies and, if you’ve lucked out enough to be on February’s LoveTEFL China TEFL Internship, you’ll join revellers in public spaces up and down the land!
There’s more to Chinese New Year than banquets, fireworks and lion dancing, and you don’t need to be in China to join in the celebrations (though it certainly helps!). The basic history of this highly significant festival is often taught to us even at primary school age in the UK, but we’ve put together some lesser-known facts to give you the low-down and hopefully get you in the mood to celebrate next week!
New Year fireworks in Beijing
Chinese New Year… what’s it all about?
It started as a harvest festival
Since time immemorial, Chinese New Year has been celebrated at the end of the Chinese lunar calendar between January 20th and February 21st. According to ancient mythology, native villagers were tormented by a terrible beast from the sea, the Nian (which has the same character as the word for ‘year’). The Nian would eat crops, livestock and even people and generally make life quite miserable.
One day, a wise old man told the villagers that the Nian was scared of loud bangs, and the colour red; the villagers lit red lanterns, hung red banners and decorations at their doors, burned fires and lit fireworks. The horrible monster was never seen again – so to keep it away, this annual practice became tradition!
The Nian. Image credit: http://bit.ly/1vfPq5m
2015 will be the Year of the Goat
Each year of the lunar calendar has an animal assigned to it according to the Chinese Zodiac. There are 12 Zodiac animals, each with a sequential year assigned to them, and each with traits that are said to dictate the fortunes of those born in its year.
2015 is the Year of the Goat, or Sheep (as were 2003, 1991 and 1979), making it a prosperous year for anyone also born in a historic Goat year. People born in the Year of the Goat are said to be honest, intimate, sociable and sensitive – is this you?
Fearsome ‘Door Gods’ and Chinese couplets protect houses for the year ahead
If you’re lucky enough to be in China around this time, you’ll see colourful carvings or (more commonly) paper screens emblazoned
with ‘door gods’. These scary-looking chaps stand in full military finery, with stern facial expressions and weapons brandished, keeping negative energy and bad spirits out of the home.
Additionally, calligraphic Chinese figures are painted onto red paper and hung along the top and sides of doorways. These lucky phrases are said to bring prosperity and good wishes to the household.
Door gods guarding a doorway
Lion dances were once banned in Hong Kong
One of my earliest memories of celebrating Chinese New Year is joining my Manchester nursery class in painting cardboard boxes to make a ‘fearsome’ beast for a traditional lion dance. It’s perhaps one of the most iconic sights of this festival and dancing as a lion is considered a really high honour for China’s highly trained martial artists, but after extensive in-fighting between gang members and kung fu schools, the Hong Kong government opted to ban street lion dances around Chinese New Year.
London goes mad for it!
Not just London, either; cities all over the world celebrate Chinese New Year. In the UK London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and more are all home to large Chinese communities, and each year you’re sure to find a party if you head on down to China Town!
In 2013, a massive 500,000 people descended on London to see in the Chinese New Year in London’s China Town and Trafalgar Square – so you don’t necessarily have to journey across the world to celebrate.
A street in London’s China Town decorated for Chinese new year
Chinese New Year is celebrated by a THIRD of the world’s population
In China schools, universities and businesses close for the celebrations, usually for about a month – just like our Christmas and New Year holidays. It’s also observed in loads of other countries in Asia with one day of public holiday – countries including Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines. That’s a LOT of people celebrating!
Choose your presents carefully
As with many things in Chinese culture, superstition dictates the exchange of gifts and presents around Chinese New Year. Some items have fairly extreme meanings and will be met with sheer horror when unwrapped. If you’re thinking of treating your friends and family to some thoughtful prezzies, here are a few ideas you may want to avoid like the plague:
Scissors, knives or sharp objects signify wanting to sever ties with the recipient.
Shoes: The Chinese word for ‘shoes’, xié, sounds exactly like the word for ‘evil’.
Clocks and watches symbolise the running out of time. Not one for grandma.
Mirrors are believed to attract malicious ghosts.
A traditional Chinese New Year meal
Three weeks of celebrations precede Chinese New Year
The celebrations begin as long as three weeks before the event itself, with huge flower markets springing up and community paper-cutting sessions organised where locals can create their ornate door hangings. Chinese people will often honour their ancestors in this time too, giving thanks, lighting incense and making offerings in order to curry their good favour for the upcoming year. Huge, delicious meals will be prepared and all knives will be put away to avoid ‘cutting off the good luck’ from the year ahead.
Get your feather duster ready; it’s spring cleaning time!
It’s also a Chinese New Year tradition to clean the house from top to bottom, much like the Western idea of ‘spring cleaning’. This is believed to sweep all of the bad, old luck from the previous year out and create a welcoming environment for good fortune – so no putting off your housework (if it helps, remember that for a few days after the New Year begins you’re not allowed to sweep in case you brush all the brand new luck away!).
‘Cleaning house’ also refers to clearing any outstanding debts, burying the hatchet with friends you may have fallen out with, and getting unfinished work done. Let’s start the New Year on a high!
A little girl watches the celebrations
Gung hey fat choy!
When out and about in public, the average Chinese person will greet passers-by kindly and politely around Chinese New Year; so here’s a few phrases to tide you over.
Gongxi!: Respectful joy, greeting and well wishes to passers-by
Gung hey fat choy: May you become prosperous
Xinnián kuàile (sshin-nyen kwhy-luh): Happy New Year!
New York’s China Town celebratory parade
Even if you’re not in China next week, why not see if there’s anything going on in your local community that you can get involved with? Make some traditional Chinese art, catch the New Year parade on the TV, or even prepare a delicious Chinese meal yourself at home!
We want to hear from you. Are you one of our lucky interns who’ll be celebrating whilst teaching in Beijing? What are your plans? Or if you’re at home, will you be celebrating Chinese New Year on the 15th February and if so, how?