As an important family reunion occasion, food and drink are a crucial part of the New Year celebration. Members of the family sit around a big table to have a New Year’s Eve dinner. This is known as Nian Ye Fan.
Families burn incense to worship their ancestors. Older and senior members of the family give the younger one’s good luck pocket money known as Ya Sui Qian contained in a red envelop.
Everyone would have a thorough bath to cleanse themselves and wash away the bad luck before the end of the year. Children and adults would change into new clothes, new shoes, new outfits for the festive period.
At midnight on New Year’s Eve, noisy firecrackers would be set off to usher in the New Year. On New Year’s Day and the few days that follow, friends would visit each other’s homes and offer good luck wishes to each other, exchange seasonal greetings, where they make a bow with hands folded in front.
How do you say ‘happy new year’ in Chinese?
In northern China, it is common to say “Xinnian Kuaile” (Happy New Year in Mandarin) when greeting someone. Whereas in Guangdong and Hong Kong, the Cantonese version of the greeting is “Gong Hey Fat Choi”.
What Chinese New Year decorations do you make?
Decoration is a big part of Chinese New Year celebration. People spend substantial time and effort to uplift their houses and the immediate surroundings in order to welcome the Gods of Wealth (财神). There are said to be two Gods of Wealth: one God of Civil (文神) and one God of Military (武神).
People fix up paper-cuts (窗花) on windows and folk paintings on walls, hang red lanterns in and outside their houses, display couplets (春联) on doors, hang a big Chinese character LUCK (福) on the main entrance and so on.
In some parts of northern China this Chinese character is often hung upside down, because the term “upside down” sounds like “arriving” in Mandarin Chinese. Thus, an upside-down LUCK would mean LUCK arriving there.
Streets, city squares and other public places are also decorated with banners, flags, flowerpots, orange trees and so on in order to boost the festive atmosphere. Peach, plum and daffodils are mostly seen because they are thought to bring good luck.
