Visiting Chinese Professor Explains New Year's Traditions
Baihley Grandison
Issue date: 2/8/10 Section: Features
|
The Chinese New Year, known to the Chinese as the Spring Festival, begins this year on February 14 and kicks off the Year of the Tiger. For the Chinese, the Spring Festival is the Christmas of all holidays, with festivities lasting a full two weeks. Those days are filled with food, fun, family, and the holiday traditions.
Dr. Dafu Yang, a visiting professor from Xi'an International Studies University in Xi'an, China, gave RWC students a presentation explaining some of the traditions of this important holiday.
The origins of many New Year's traditions are based on the legend of Nien, the mythical beast who preyed on villages on the first day of a new year. According to the legend, every year Nien would appear and devour everything in his path: livestock, crops, and even children. Villagers were forced to come up with ways to scare him off, like fashioning dragon costumes or creating strings of loud firecrackers.
Nien was also afraid of the color red, which for the Chinese symbolizes virtue, truth, and simplicity, and is an emblem of joy.
Modern day festivities begin with a day of commemorating the dead. During the next two weeks, red decorations are put up everywhere: lanterns, posters, signs, strings of firecrackers, etc. Several days into the Festival, on the eve of the new year, families hold a large dinner and family reunion, serving traditional dishes like fish, layer cake, and dumplings shaped like Chinese coins called tael to symbolize wealth. There are lots of fireworks on this day as well.
On the day of the new year, red envelopes called "hong bao" are filled with money and given from the adults to the unmarried young adults and children. The Festival ends on a full moon, which will occur this year on February 28.
"Gung hay fat choy," everyone!
Be the first to comment on this story