Chinese
Traditional Festivals
Chinese
New Year (Spring Festival) --- Lunar January 1st
This is the New Year Festival for
Chinese at the beginning of spring, which is lasting till January 15th.
It is the most important festival on Chinese calendar. People
celebrate it and make a good wish for the upcoming year. They get
together to have a family dinner and visit their relatives and friends
during the holiday. There are so many traditional customs and food
flavors in the different places of the country. The amusement
includes playing fireworks and
firecrackers, dragon &
lion dancing, watching opera and
concert, especially for the New Year Evening Show on TV for the current
years, etc.
Lantern
Festival --- Lunar January 15th
It is the first day to see the full
moon in the New Year and is also the last day of the New Year Festival.
People like celebrating it on having balled
dumpling and attending a lantern
show at evening, where there are so many varieties of beautiful
lanterns with puzzles on some of them for resolution by attendants and
some folk dancing are also available right there.
Festival
of the Black Dragon --- Lunar February 2nd
QingMing
(Clear & Bright) Festival --- Lunar March (April 4th or 5th)
It is the day that Chinese holds
memorial ceremony for their ancestors and relatives or friends. They are
going to do tomb-cleaning or just take the memorial ceremony at home.
A special green
rice dumpling with red bean paste inside is recommendable to have
for that day.
Duan Wu Festival ( Dragon Boat Festival ) --- Lunar May 5th
This is the commemoration day for the
patriot poet—Qu Yuan who lived over 2000 years ago.
People are participating
the Dragon Boat Race on
the river and having zongzi ( another kind of
rice dumpling wrapped by bamboo or reed leaf ) on the day.
And they are decorating the colorful ornaments on the gates and
smoking some medical herbs to get rid of the evils and worms in and
outside the houses. Other related: Hong Kong-bun snatching tradition
Festival
Daughters’
Festival (Double Seven Festival) --- Lunar July 7th
It is Chinese
Valentine day. There is a legend about a cowboy and a fairy that
loved each other very much and had a pair of lovely son and daughter,
but unfortunately they were forced to be separated and only meet once a
year through the bird bridge at the evening of the right day of lunar
July 7th. Hence
it is the time for dating between guys and girls.
Mid-year’s
full moon --- Lunar July15th
Mid-Autumn
Festival --- Lunar August 15th
This is the time for family reunion to
have a dinner and appreciate the biggest full moon during a year while
enjoying the moon cakes and
steamed soybean with taro. Some people like to make or read poems and
play the music when they are watching the pretty night view with amazing
moon in the sky. Additionally
children like playing the paper
lanterns outside the house.
Double
Nine Festival --- Lunar September 9th
It is an important religious day for
people to go to mountain shrines to worship their ancestors.
This traditionally is in remembrance of a man who saved his
family from disaster by taking them into the mountains.
Full
Moon of the End of year --- Lunar October 15th
Dong
Zhi (Winter Solstice Festival) --- Lunar November
(December
22nd)
This is the second most important
festival on Chinese calendar. It is the longest night of the year and it
is the day when sunshine is weakest and daylight is shortest.
The celebration can be traced to
Chinese belief –yin &
yang, which represent balance and harmony in life. It is
believed that the yin qualities of darkness and cold are at their
most powerful at this time, but it is also the turning point, giving way
to the light and warmth of yang.
For this reason, the Dong
Zhi Festival is a time for optimism. Therefore it is the time for
family reunion to celebrate with dinner and have some food to be healing
property in the long night.
Laba
Festival --- Lunar December 8th
Laba in Chinese means ‘gold
eighth’ and refers to the traditional start of celebration for Chinese
New Year. On this day, a hot
rice porridge called Laba Zhou
is served, which contains glutinous rice, red beans, millet, sorghum,
peas, dried dates, lotus seeds, chestnuts meat, almond, walnut meat,
peanuts, etc. People start
the preparation for the porridge at the midnight of previous night and
stew it till early morning. The flavor varies in the different places in
China
.
Kitchen
God Day --- Lunar December 24th
It is the day that sacrifices are to
be offered to Kitchen God.
Because the Kitchen God will be back to heaven and report about
the activities of this family over the past year.
This day is marked by the acts of appeasement to the kitchen god
so that he will give a favorable report.
Traditionally the images of the kitchen god are burned as
symbolic act of the departure. From this day the kitchen god will absent
from his shrine in the kitchen, and during the time it will be cleaned
in preparation for his return on New Year’s Eve.
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