Spring Festival in China: Customs and Traditions of Chinese New Year
Video transcript
the first day of the first luna month is spring festival spring festival the beginning of a new year for china spring festival is china's biggest extravaganza and the day for family reunion reunion being around family members at the turn of the year is a vital ritual for the chinese people chinese people many of those leaving away from their hometowns returned home during spring festival festival which gives rise to what's called the largest annual human migration in the world world also known as a spring festival travel rush the spring festival
celebration is a continuous process continuous process starting from the 23rd or 24th of the 12th lunar month 12th lunar month people often worship the teaching god clean their houses clean their houses do their shopping do their shopping and put up spring festival couplets until new year's eve on the lunar calendar these customs can be traced back to a chinese legend chinese legend it is said that in ancient times there was a monster named yen who would come out and harm the world by the end of each lunar year people then took measures to send the
monster away monster away such as putting up red couplets as name detested the color red and setting of fireworks and firecrackers at their doors to scare it away in addition to staying up late on new year's eve year's eve having a new year's eve dinner and watching the spring festival gala are two important customs of spring festival new year's eve dinner are manifested in different ways in different parts of china china those in south china must have a dish of fish fish because fish in chinese sound similar to the character for prosperity symbolizing
an abundant and comfortable life those in north china often eat dumplings the spring festival gala is a variety tv program broadcast annually to celebrate the lunar new year the gala attracts the largest audience of any entertainment show in the world around for more than four hours making it the longest tv show in the world it is often held as a cultural fist for chinese people on new year's eve there's also a custom of giving and receiving red envelopes or home bow traditionally adults place the money into red envelopes and give them to the children to
wish them peace and good luck in the coming year nowadays with the popular resistion of mobile payment in china it is a trend to send red envelopes digitally the internet can deliver new year's wishes to each and every loved one even if they are thousands of miles away the joyous atmosphere of chinese new year will linger until the first full moon of the first the lunama then the lantern festival is celebrated which is bound to be another busy day
