Chinese New Year: A Primer

The official holiday has now finished, so I’m posting this primer a bit late. But as our family chose to stay in China for Chinese New Year, I figured you ought to benefit from our newly gained knowledge. I quizzed Wendy on her family’s Spring Festival traditions – for the Chinese do not call it Chinese New Year. And our family is celebrating as well, although not in any of Wendy’s more traditional ways.

The Spring Festival celebrates the beginning of the lunar year, which began one week ago. The Spring Festival compares to America’s traditions of both Christmas and New Year’s Eve, rolled into one grand weekend. People spend time with their families – even in a country so full of migrants, and people. Train travel on the days leading up to the holiday is intense, with tickets selling out within hours of going on sale. Many of these tickets will be standing room only, for trips easily lasting 30 hours. This mass movement of people through China is said to be the largest annual migration of people worldwide.

Each person in China made every effort to be at their family home by Friday evening. So, the office was empty for Dave on Friday. The bus was quick for Wendy on Friday. Wendy did not travel for the holiday, because her husband’s family lives in Shanghai. Although she was clearly nostalgic for her family as she told of her traditions, she was also assured that a wife spends this holiday with her husband’s family. I am beginning to learn how few choices Wendy really has.

Friday night is an evening of feasting with family. As we walked the street on Friday, we could feel a charge in the air not unlike on Christmas Eve. People completed their last bits of shopping, waited with large bags for taxis and busses, loaded up on fruit and nuts and stood in line at the ATM. The atmosphere was calmer than usual, and much more congenial. And people sold fireworks everywhere. At the fruit stand, on the corner, at the bakery, at the quick shop. People sold fireworks everywhere. And although we began to hear fireworks as early at 8:00pm on Friday night, they would not begin in earnest until Saturday night – essentially New Year’s Eve.

Saturday was the true holiday, comparable to Christmas. This is another feast day, and the streets of Shanghai were eerily quiet. Most shops stood closed – with the exception of fruit stands, with lovely baskets of bright and exotic fruits displayed prominently. And fireworks – still plenty of fireworks for sale.

Wendy explained that on this day – essentially New Year’s Eve – families would follow a few key traditions.

Hong bao: these are red envelopes used for gifting money. Around the holiday, employers often give their employees a hong bao. On New Year’s Eve, adults will fill this with money and give them to children. Grandparents and aunts and uncles give them to their nieces and nephews – Wendy said it would be silly to give one to your own child. They’ll receive so many already! If the neighbor children knock on the door, they will receive cookies or candies.

Red Paper: People decorate their homes with red paper marked with their wishes for the year. Red paper on the front door will say fu (good luck) or gong xi fai cai (earn a lot of money). Red paper on livestock or barn doors will wish for a growing herd, and red paper on trees will wish for their long life. Red paper in the kitchen will wish for no fires, and red paper on the car will wish for no accidents in the coming year.

Cleaning: In this way, the first days of the New Year are much like the Jewish Sabbath. The family will not work on these days, allowing all of their household to rest and enjoy the holiday. No one will wash, because the water should rest. No one will use a knife or scissors, because those tools should rest as well. The observance of this holiday clearly has roots as a winter festival in an agrarian community. Many people in the countryside have no heat. So, to keep dishes and prepared food for a few days is not an issue. Likewise, not showering or washing clothes. Preparing the house and the body as clean for the New Year may be the larger piece.

Kind words: Possibly in the same tradition as beginning the year with a clean house and a clean body, a person should begin the year with a kind tongue. No one speaks ill of anyone else on the first few days of the new year, and people are never to get angry. Between the money from their family, the candy from their neighbors, and the rule against anger, kids must love this holiday!

Fireworks: Wendy explained that people will set off fireworks on the first 4 days of the new year, and then again on the 15^th day. Each day, she said it is good luck for the family who blasts the first fireworks of the morning. On New Year’s Eve, beginning around midnight, the whole country went alight. Again on the 5^th day of the festival, the city explodes. At great expense to themselves, families purchase fireworks of all types. They purchase large boxes of noisemakers, to make the city sound like a warzone. They purchase bright light style fireworks – the type that only the fire department sets off in America.

The entire country has a 7 day holiday. This began on Saturday and will continue until Friday. Offices opened again on Saturday and Dave is at work today, making this a 7 day work week.

In the villages, the holiday will last longer than 7 days. Many people will travel home for 2 weeks or a month. The many migrant workers making America’s T-shirts, computers and fake Christmas trees have received the entire month away from the factory and this will be the only time they see their family all year. Traditionally, the holiday has been celebrated for 3 months. Again, I remember that China is traditionally an agrarian culture without heat in most homes. In the 1^st month, families celebrate Chinese New Year with their loved ones and their friends. This includes dressing up as lions, carrying children in dry boats, singing for hong bao or cigarettes, and building dragons and lanterns. On the 15^th day of the New Year the full moon will rise, and people will hang out their lanterns, dance their large dragons and set off more fireworks. They will eat sticky rice balls and wish that their families live full lives, much like the full moon.

In the 2^nd month, people play games and in the 3^rd month people make plays. I love this one – that each village will put together a stage production of some sort, inviting all of their neighboring villages to see the performance. What a lovely way to spend the winter months, when no work can be done in the fields. Rather than be cooped up at home, spend the months playing games and putting together plays with your community.

Our family celebrated in a much simpler and thoroughly modern way. We played games, ate good food, and enjoy each other’s company. We spent time outside, playing in the snow in Moganshan and walking the quiet streets of Shanghai. We hosted a small party. And then sent Dave back to work on Saturday. Uncle H-- keeps him mighty busy these days, and so we particularly appreciate the week off.