The spring festival in China

Just like the Christmas in Western countries, the spring festival is the most important festival in China. People celebrate it at the end of the year in the lunar calendar, it is at the end of winter and at the beginning of spring, so we called it the spring festival. People celebrate it with families; all the family members get together and make a lot of delicious food. The spring festival is the children’s favorite because they can get pocket money from their mother, father, grandparents and relatives, they do not have to do homework during the spring festival but have a lot of time to play. As adults, the spring festival is a good chance to have a rest!

There are many important customs in the spring festival. People go out on the first day of the new year and say happy new year to each other. Also, people usually do not go to bed on the eve of the spring festival, they might watch TV, play cards or hold a family party for a whole night. People usually eat dumplings on the morning of the first year, so all the family members make dumplings together during the night.

The spring festival is celebrated in winter, and because heavy snow shows that the next year will have a big crop, people will hope for heavy snow on the eve of the spring festival. Moreover, red is a lucky color in China, so people will put on their red clothes to meet the new year, with parents buying new clothes for their children. This symbolises that the children will be healthy and smart in the new year.

There are also some culinary customs. Parents will make delicious food on the spring festival, which must include fish, as it symbolises “every year has fishes”  (a traditional saying in Chinese). As well as this, people will set off fireworks during the spring festival, it is a common custom. Every family will put up Spring Scrolls, which has been a custom throughout China’s long history, people also put new year paintings on the wall to symbolise best wishes for the year to come.