About Chinese Lunar New Year

The Chinese calendar – a calendar that's has been in use for at least 3500 years – is based on the moon as well as the sun and is used to mark all traditional festivals. Chinese Lunar New Year marks the start of spring and normally falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice.

It's believed that the New Year festival grew from an ancient end-of-winter festival. As winter receded in the face of spring, the people of a clan would gather to give thanks for the blessings of nature by feasting, dancing and singing. Over time, this became a festival to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new. The New Year period runs from the first day of New Year to the fifteenth day.

Chinese Lunar New Year has many ancient traditions associated with it, including:

Visiting family and friends
In a custom known as 'new-year visits', families and friends reunite at each other's houses, often wearing new clothes to signify the new year. Houses are decorated with red paper cutouts for good luck and every household prepares a plate of special New Year sweets for their guests.

The New Year's Eve meal
The family reunion meal on New Year's Eve is the most important family meal in the Chinese year. It's the equivalent of Christmas dinner in the West – only with more dishes on the table. Traditionally, the dinner includes fish as the word for 'fish' sounds similar to another Chinese word meaning 'be blessed every year'. In many areas, it's also customary to eat dumplings at this meal; dumplings symbolise wealth because of their similarity in shape to traditional Chinese gold bars.

Giving money
Married couples and the elderly traditionally give red envelopes containing money to children. For good luck, the envelopes must be red and the amount of money should be an even figure. Sometimes chocolate coins are included in the envelopes.

Cleaning the house
In the run-up to New Year, Chinese families traditionally give their home a thorough spring-clean to sweep away any bad luck from the last year and to get ready for new good luck. It's considered unlucky to clean on the first day of New Year, however – this will sweep away the new year's good fortune.

Firecrackers
There are many legends surrounding aspects of New Year, but the foremost is the story of Nian.

In ancient times, Nian was a fierce monster with the head of a lion and the body of a bull. Usually, he stayed in the mountains feeding on animals but, towards the end of the winter, he became hungry and would roam into villages to eat anything it could catch. Many frightened villagers moved away to escape the ferocious Nian; however, those who stayed realised that the monster was afraid of three things: the colour red, bright flames and loud noise.

The villagers learnt that, before Nian came at the end of winter, they should paint their doors red and light fires in front of the entrances to their houses. They would stay awake all night beating on drums to make noise. Later, they realised that bamboo made a popping noise when it was burnt – even more so when the hollow bamboo was filled with gunpowder. In time, people replaced the bamboo with strings of firecrackers – and that's how the Chinese came to set off firecrackers at New Year.