Chinese New Year: Lunar Festival on Valentine’s Day

By Chyanne Wens

         A very important traditional Chinese holiday, the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is falling on the same day as our traditional Valentine’s Day on February 14.

         HOwever, unlike Valentine’s Day, the Chinese New Year lasts for about 15 days.

        Chinese New Year is celebrated by Chinese communities worldwide, and not just in China. The festival’s celebration events include Dragon Dances/Lion Dances, fireworks, family gathering, family meals, visiting friends and relatives, giving red envelopes with money to young teens and children, and decorating with dullian.

Dullians are two lines of poetry that are on the sides of doors leading to peoples’ homes. 

According to Wikipedia, the most common dullian seen within the New Year is a type of dullian called chunlian, which expresses happy and hopeful thoughts for the coming year.

The beginning of Chinese New Year, according to tales and legends, started with a fight against a mythical creature called a Nian. The legend was the start of the Lion Dance.

The Lion Dance began when a Nian attacked a village. After the attack, the villagers came up with a plan where drums, plates and empty bows were hit and firecrackers were thrown to scare the Nian away. Lion Dances usually portray the Nian.

Nian were also afraid of the color red and sensitive to loud noises. When Chinese New Year starts, red becomes a very popular color and firecrackers are lit by the hundreds.

The days before the New Year celebration, Chinese families give their home a very thorough cleaning which is believed to sweep away bad luck. Brooms and dust pans are put away on the first day so the luck cannot be swept away.

Homes are often decorated with cutouts of auspicious phrases and couplets while new clothes are purchased and hair cuts received to symbolize a fresh start.

Within families, red envelopes aren’t the only thing exchanged. Small gifts are often exchanged that usually contain food or sweets that are exchanged between friends or relatives of different households.