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There are many stories
about how the Chinese celebrate the Spring Festival.
As legend goes, in remote antiquity there was a kind of evil spirit
called "Nian", who would come out looting and hurting the people at the
turn of each winter. To scare away the evil spirit, people burnt stalks
of bamboo. When "Nian" heard the crackle and saw the flames of burning
bamboo, it would be so frightened as to make itself scarce. So people
actually scared away "Nian" with this kind of primitive "firecrackers".
When the cold winter is over, spring arrives in all its beauty. There
goes the saying that "a whole year's work depends on a good start in
spring." Hoping for a propitious and happy new year, each family will
clean up the house and put up an antithetical couplet, written on two
scrolls of paper to be pasted one on each side of the door. Dressed up
in their best, people will get together, treat each other to the most
delicious foods and exchange auspicious greetings. This is called "to
pay a ceremonial call on New Year's Day". During the Spring Festival,
the first words uttered when meeting others are often "Congratulations
for the New Year!" Many interesting activities such as letting off
firecrackers, dragon lantern dance and lion dance are also held to
celebrate the occasion. New Year cake and dumplings of various kinds,
usually made of glutinous rice flour, are signs of good luck and so
indispensable for every household. As early as over 4,000 years ago, in
the Western Zhou Dynasty, the custom of holding Spring Festival
celebrations was already with the Chinese. in the Han Dynasty, Sima Qian
invented the " Tai Cu Calendar" (Tai Cu being the name of a period
during the reign of Emperor Wu Di) which set New Year's Day on the first
day of the first month of the lunar year and this traditional festival
has continued all the way to the present. |
