Jackie Chen
English 2100t
9/10/18
Celebration
Throughout my life, me and my family have celebrated one holiday and thats Chinese New Years or known as Spring Festival . Chinese New Year is a important holiday to us as it unite our family, it also bring us joy and happiness. Chinese New Year have a long history and filled with stories and have been celebrated throughout China. Everyone have their own version/tradition of Chinese New Year and celebrated differently based on the place you grew up in.
Chinese New Year origin started long ago in the Qing and Ming dynasty. It was a big holiday back back in the chinese history based on Asia For Education “ Through centuries of China’s agrarian tradition, this was the one period when farmers could rest from their work in the fields. Family members from near and far would travel to be with loved ones in time to usher out the old year and welcome in the new, with great celebratory flourish.” The chinese people can take days off work and reunite with their loves one and family. Chinese New Year celebration time is different every year based on the chinese calendar based on the moon. Before the Chinese New Year celebration people would take a long time to prepare for the celebration. They have to shopping buy tones of supply for the celebration food, fireworks, red lantern, and paper money etc. Chinese New Years last for many days and each day they do something different. When the people hang up the red lantern and the red paper(Chūnlián) it’s the sign that they are ready for the New Year. It also bring good luck to the family as well as invite the good fortune to come to the house. The next day it’s time for the family reunion, family members will gather together and celebrate. When night times comes we have a big family dinner known as ( Tuányuán fàn). At this dinner family member will share stories and eat delicious food and each food have a meaning behind it. Common dishes are Dumpling, noodles, spring rolls, fish, rice cake( nianjao), and orange each of these items have a reason behind it. Dumping and spring rolls represents gold cause they look like gold bars and nuggets which means that this year you will be rich. Noodles means long life and the longer the noodle is the longer you going to live. Each new year if you have a fish dish in your table then it means that this year you will be successful same for rice( nianjao). Orange and fruits bring good fortune to the family keeping them safe. At night time family gather together and watch the night show called (Chūnjié wǎnhuì). Very late at night like 12am people go outside and start to play with there fireworks and have fun with the beautiful view. The next morning parents will starting giving red envelopes(Hóngbāo) to their kids. Chinese New Year last for 15 days the last day of the celebration is called the lantern festival. During this festival people will go and eat sweet rice ball soup(Tāngyuán). There will be a huge peraid where there will be lion dances and kind of shows. People will write their wishes and hopes into the lantern and let it run down the river. Kids will play riddles and carry paper lantern with them during the festival. When the lantern festival is over the celebration is over and people just go back to their regular lives.
There are tones of stories that family tell their kids about Chinese New Year. My grandma will tell me stories when I was little about how people started to celebrate Chinese New Year. The story would start from long ago when there was beast that comes to the village every year to terrious the village. The beast would eat everything the farmers grow and leave them with nothing left. One year a man went to praise the god and ask him for a solution to this problem. The god came down from the heaven and told the man that next time the beast comes make loud sounds, hang up a lot of red lanterns, and dress up as dragons. The villagers listen and did what the god said, the next day came and the beast have entered the village. The beast was freiten of the sounds they made with the fireworks and drums. The beast is really scared of fire and the lantern made it look like the village is on fire. When the dress up dragon came the beast was super freiten and ran for his life. Every year the villagers will put up lantern make loud sound and dress as dragons to scare of the beast and made it a celebration.
I lived in china for five years and I don’t remember much about the celebration in my hometown. Growing up in America my family have celebrate Chinese New Year as well. We take a lot time to prepare for it and have all our family member gather together. We will decorate our house with animal for the year and lucky chinese letters. We will go buy paper money for burning and tones of food. As a family we will prepare for the big feast and the kids will go out and play. We will lay out the food and before we eat the food we will put red envelopes to each dish and pray to the gods and say what we want to happen this year. We will go outside and burn paper money the reason for that is that our ancestor will have money to use. When every preparation are done then we will sit down as a family and enjoy the food and we share stories. Later the our parents will sit down and play majong and i will go watch tv shows. We can’t play with any fireworks since your not allowed to. The next morning our parents will prepare red envelopes and give them out. This is my favorite part because it’s free money.
Chinese New Year is a wonderful celebration throughout history and in my life as well. I really enjoy the tradition and our family able to gather together. Chinese New Year leave me with so many wonderful memories and bring joy into my life. We are able to spend time with family members that you haven’t seen in years and they give you the most pocket money. I really enjoy spending time as a family and be able to sit together in one dinner table and eat together.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_general_lunar.htm