Festival of China.

[yin-yang]

Spring Festival

Far and away the most important holiday in China is Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year. To the Chinese people it is as important as Christmas to people in the West. The dates for this annual celebration are determined by the lunar calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, so the timing of the holiday varies from late January to early February.

To the ordinary Chinese, the festival actually begins on the eve of the lunar New Year's Day and ends on the fifth day of the first month of the lunar calendar. But the 15th of the first month, which normally is called the Lantern Festival, means the official end of the Spring Festival in many parts of the country.

Preparations for the New Year begin the last few days of the last moon, when houses are thoroughly cleaned, debts repaid, hair cut and new clothes purchased. Houses are festooned with paper scrolls bearing auspicious antithetical couplet (as show on both side of the page) and in many homes, people burn incense at home and in the temples to pay respects to ancestors and ask the gods for good health in the coming months.

"Guo Nian," meaning "passing the year," is the common term among the Chinese people for celebrating the Spring Festival. It actually means greeting the new year. At midnight at the turn of the old and new year, people used to let off fire-crackers which serve to drive away the evil spirits and to greet the arrival of the new year. In an instant the whole city would be engulfed in the deafening noise of the firecrackers.

On New Year's Eve, all the members of families come together to feast. Jiaozi, a steamed dumpling as pictured below, is popular in the north, while southerners favor a sticky sweet glutinous rice pudding called nian gao.



The Moon Festival

On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the moon is round and the Chinese people mark their Moon (or Mid-autumn) Festival. The round shape to a Chinese means family reunion. Therefore the Moon Festival is a holiday for members of a family to get together wherever it is possible.

On that day sons and daughters will bring their family members back to their parents' house for a reunion. Sometimes people who have already settled overseas will come back to visit their parents on that day.

As every Chinese holiday is accompanied by some sort of special food. On the Moon Festival, people eat moon cakes, a kind of cookie with fillings of sugar, fat, sesame, walnut, the yoke of preserved eggs, ham or other material. In Chinese fairy tales, there live on the moon the fairy Chang E, a wood cutter named Wu Gang and a jade rabbit which is Chang E's pet. In the old days, people paid respect to the fairy Chang E and her pet the jade rabbit.

The custom of paying homage to the fairy and rabbit is gone, but the moon cakes are showing improvement every year. There are hundreds of varieties of moon cakes on sale a month before the arrival of the Moon Festival this year. Some moon cakes are of very high quality and very delicious. An overseas tourist is advised not to miss it if he or she happens to be in China during the Moon Festival.

Poems on Moon and Home
The Mid-Autumn Moon
by Li Qiao
A full moon hangs high in the chilly sky,
All say it's the same everywhere, round and bright.
But how can one be sure thousands of li away
Wind and perhaps rain may not be marring the night?

The Yo-Mei Mountain Moon
by Li Bai
The autumn moon is half round above the Yo-mei Mountain;
The pale light falls in and flows with the water of the Ping-chiang River.
Tonight I leave Ching-chi of limpid stream for the three Canyons.
And glide down past Yu-chow, thinking of you whom I can not see.



Chongyang Festival

The Chongyang Festival falls on the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, so it is also known as the Double Ninth Festival.

The festival is based on the theory of Yin and Yang, the two opposing principles in nature. Yin is feminine, negative principle, while Yang is masculine and positive. The ancients believed that all natural phenomena could be esplained by this theory. Numbers are related to this theory. Even numbers belong to Yin and odd numbers to Yang. The ninth day of the ninth lunar month is a day when the two Yang numbers meet. So it is called Chongyang. Chong means double in Chinese.Chongyang has been an important festival since ancient times.

The festival is held in the golden season of autumn, at harvest -time. The bright clear weather and the joy of bringing in the harvest make for a festive happy atmosphere.The Double Ninth Festival is usually perfect for outdoor activities. Many people go hiking and climbing in the country, enjoying Mother Nature's final burst of color before she puts on her dull winter cloak. Some will carry a spray of dogwood.

It is hard to say when these customs were created. But there are many stories which are closely related. The book Xu Qi Xie Ji ,written by Wu Jun in the sixth century has one such story. In ancient times, there lived a man named Huan Jing. He was learning the magic arts from Fei Changfang, who had become an immortal after many years of practicing Taoism. One day, the two were climbing a muntain. Fei Changfang suddenly stopped and looked very upset. He told Huan Jing,On the ninth day of the ninth month, disaster will come to your hometown. You must go home immediately. Remember to make a red bag for each one of your family members and put a spray of dogwood in every one. Then you must all tie your bags to your arms, leave home quickly and climb to the top of a mountain. Most importantly, you must all drink some chrysanthemum wine. Only by doing so can your family avoid this disaster.
On hearing this, Huan Jing rushed home and asked his family to do exactly as his teacher said. The whole family climbed a nearby mountain and did not return until the evening. When they got back home, they found all their animals dead, including chickens, sheep,dogs and even the powerful ox. Later Huan Jing told his teacher, Fei Changfang, about this. Fei said the poultry and livestock died in place of Huan Jing's family, who escaped disaster by following his instructions.

And so it happened that climbing a mountain, carring a spray of dogwood and drinking chrysanthemum wine became the traditional activities of the Chongyang Festival.

The dogwood is a plant with a strong fragrance, and is often used as a Chinese herbal medicine. People in ancient times believed it could drive away evil spirits and prevent one from getting a chill in lalte autumn. So its history as a medicine goes back many centuries. But the custom of carrying a spray of dogwood during the Double Ninth Festival is slowly dying out and many people, especially young people in the cities, do not even know what a dogwood spray looks like.

Even thouht the tradition of carrying a few sptigs of dogwood dies out, that of climbing mountains is reaching new heights.

Early in the Western Han Dynasty, about 2,000 years ago, people used to climb a high platform outside the capital city of Chang'an on the occasion of the Chongyang Festival. For many, it was the last outing of the year before the onset of winter. The custom evolved into its present form, when people go climbing to get some exercise as well as enjoy the autumn scenery.

But what about those people who live in flat regions far from any mountain? The problem is solved by going for a picnic and eating cakes. The Chinese word for cake is Gao, a homonym of the Chinese word for high.

Mountains are high, so eating cake can, by a stretch of the imagination, take the place of going for a climb.

Since nine is the highest odd digit, people take two of them together to signify longevity. Therefore, the ninth day of the ninth month has become a special day for people to pay their respects to the elderly and a day for the elderly to enjoy themselves. It has also been declared China's day for the elderly.



"Duan Wu"-- A Day in Memory of A Patriotic Poet

The 5th day of the 5th month of the lunar year is an important day for the Chinese people. The day called "Duan Wu" (meaning Day of Right Mid-Day) is observed everywhere in China. This unique Chinese celebration dates back to earliest times and a number of legends explain its origins.

The best known story centers on a patriotic court official named Qu Yuan, of the State of Chu during the Warring States Period more than 2,000 years ago. Qu tried to warn the emperor of an increasingly courrupt government, but fails. In a last desperate protest, he throws himself into the river and drowns. The State of Chu was soon annexed by the State of Qin.

Later Qu Yuan's sympathizers jump into boats, beat the water with their oars and made rice dumplings wrapped in reed-leaves (zongzi) and scatter them into the Miluo River in the hope that fish in the river would eat the rice dumplings instead of the body of the deceased poet.

The custom of making rice dumplings spread to the whole country. Today, people eat glutinous rice cakes to mark the occasion.

At the news of the poet's death, the local people raced out in boats in an efforts of searching his body. Later the activity became a boat race and the boats gradually developed into dragon-boats. In many places along rivers and on the coast today, the holiday also features dragon-boat races. In these high-spirited competitions, teams of rowers stroke their oars in unision to propel sleek, long vessels through the water.



Lantern Festival

The 15th day of the first lunar month--Yuanxiao Jie, known as the lantern Festival. Each year, there is an exhibition of coloured lanterns at night. Every family hangs red lanterns over their gates. Children carry all kinds of coloured laternns and in streets and squares, coloured lantern sheds are built for lantern exhibition. Everyone goes out to see the lanterns.

The Lantern Festival is a traditional festival in China. The way of making the lanterns differs according to the natural environment. Lanterns are different in the north and the south. In Northern Shaanxi Province, women in the countryside use sorghum stalks to make lantern frames, then they paste red paper on the frames. In this way, they make all sorts of lanterns, such as pumpkin lanterns, persimmon lanterns and sheep lanterns. They also cut potatoes into a bowl shape. Then they put oil into the bowl-shaped potatoes and place lampwicks in them and cover the potatoes with red paper lampshades. People hang red lanterns over the gates of their cave dwellings. Willow trees are also decorated with coloured paper. Red lanterns are hung here and there on willow trees. The trees are called lantern trees or spark trees.

Beijing was the capital of several dynasties in Chinese history. On the Lantern Festival, all sorts of lanterns were hung in the palace. Artists made fancy lanterns, whose frames ere made with carved fine wood. They covered lanterns with silk, gauze, glass and sliced ox horn on which pictures of landscapes, flowers and birds were painted. At that Dengshikou (Lantern Fair Gateway) near Wangfujing Street was where lantern exhibitions were held at that time.

Harbin in North China is called an ice city. All sorts of lanterns are made there with ice. The sparking, crystal-clear lanterns are really beautiful.

Fujian has an abundance of rain, so the buildings on both sides of its streets all have overhanging upper storeys known as qi lou to shelter pedestrians from the rain. On the the Lantern Festival colourful lanterns are hung over the qi lou. Street sometimes have thousands of coloured lanterns hung along them.

Lanterns come in different shapes, such as bird, animal, flower and fish. Some lanterns are shaped like fruit, such as oranges, litchis, pineapples and others. Some are very modern like rocket and satellite lanterns. Fragrant smells waft in the breeze from the lanterns. Sandalwood incense is burned in octagonal palace lanterns.

Quanzhou has unique local customs. On the second day of the first lunar month, newly-married couples bring New Year's gifts to the woman's parents. When the couple returns home, the parents give them two lotus lanterns, one white and the other red. On the night of the Lantern Festival, the young couple hang them beside their bed, and the they light candles in the two lanterns. After that they wait and see which candle burns out first. If the candle in the white one burns out first, it means they will have a baby boy; if the candle in the red one burns out first, it means they will have a girl.

In previous times, young women and men did not have free social contact. Therefore, the Lantern Festival became an opportunity to look for marriage partners. There is a famous love story from ancient times among the people of Quanzhou. At the Lantern Huang Wuniang. They fell in love at first sight. But Wuniang's father was greedy for San disguised himself as a tradesman who polished bronze mirrors. He went to Huang's home to polish their bronze mirrors. He went to Huang's home to polish their bronze mirror and broke the bronze mirror purposely. To pay for the mirror, he sold himself into the Huang family as a slave. By doing so, he had the chance to meet Wuniang secretly. At last he and Wuniang ran away from the family and got married.


Hope you guys are enjoying these festival during ur stay in China.

[chetnarayan]

Good Job Yin Yang,

We Should Know About The Chinese Culture & Festivals........

We Will Be Called As Stupids If We Stay Here 5 Long Yrears & Dont Know Even A Bit.