On the Chinese New Year, people try their best to go home and reunite with their relatives to express their eager expectations for the coming year and their best wishes for life in the new year. The Spring Festival is the most solemn traditional festival of the Chinese nation. It is also an important carrier for Chinese people to release their emotions and satisfy their psychological demands. It is the annual carnival and eternal spiritual pillar of the Chinese nation.
Undertake thorough house cleaning
To clean houses on the New Year Even is a very old custom dating back to thousands of years ago. The dust is traditionally associated with “old” so cleaning their houses and sweeping the dust mean to bid farewell to the “old” and usher in the “new”. Days before the New Year, Chinese families clean their houses, sweeping the floor, washing daily things, cleaning the spider webs and dredging the ditches. People do all these things happily in the hope of a good coming year.
Paste Spring Couplets
One of the house decorations is to post couplets on doors. All the door panels will be pasted with Spring Festival couplets, highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper. The content varies from house owners' wishes for a bright future to good luck for the New Year. Also, pictures of the god of doors and wealth will be posted on front doors to ward off evil spirits and welcome peace and abundance.On the Spring Festival couplets, good wishes are expressed. New Year couplets are usually posted in pairs as even numbers are associated with good luck and auspiciousness in Chinese culture.
New Year Feast
Spring Festival is a time for family reunion. At that time, all family members eat dinner together. The meal is more luxurious than usual. Dishes such as chicken, fish and bean curd cannot be excluded, for in Chinese, their pronunciations, respectively "ji", "yu" and "doufu," mean auspiciousness, abundance and richness. The food eaten on the New Year Even banquet varies according to regions. In south China, It is customary to eat 'niangao' (New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) because as a homophone, niangao means 'higher and higher every year'. In the north, a traditional dish for the feast is 'Jiaozi' or dumplings shaped like a crescent moon. After the dinner, the whole family will sit together, chatting and watching TV. In recent years, the Spring Festival party broadcast on China Central Television Station (CCTV) is essential entertainment for the Chinese both at home and abroad.
Setting Firecrackers
Chinese folk have a saying of "opening the door with firecrackers". That is to say, when the New Year arrives, the first thing every household does when they open the door is to set off firecrackers to ward off the old and welcome the new with the beeping sound of firecrackers. Setting off firecrackers can create a festive and lively atmosphere. It is a festive entertainment activity that can bring people joy and good luck.
New Year Greetings
On the first day of the New Year or shortly thereafter, everybody wears new clothes and greets relatives and friends with bows and Gongxi (congratulations), wishing each other good luck, happiness during the new year.
The lively atmosphere not only fills every household, but permeates to streets and lanes. A series of activities such as lion dancing, dragon lantern dancing, lantern festivals and temple fairs will be held for days. The Spring Festival then comes to an end when the Lantern Festival is finished.