Thursday, April 14, 2011

Customs Followed During Mandarin New Year Traditions

By John Chan


There are number of traditions which revived during Chinese New Year which we will discuss below.

The Chinese people hold on to their age old traditions with their molar teeth. As a community the people of China take a lot of pride in their culture and tradition and have made all possible efforts to uphold their sanctity by keeping them alive at regular intervals.

The Chinese New Year is a time when you manage to see Chinese traditions in full bloom. A hub of traditional activity explodes onto the scene during the first few weeks of the Chinese New Year. The Chinese have a complete set of beliefs and traditional practices with regards to the welcoming of a new year. One can pretty much see how profoundly the age old traditions are entrenched in the Chinese culture by looking at all the traditional practices that are brought into light during New Year celebrations.

There is a deeper reason behind the revival and elaborate celebration of these customary rituals. Knowing the press and how they love to project the celebration world wide, the Chinese understand that it really intrigues the western world. Once the west start taking an interest into these mysterious traditions they come flocking to the country to witness them. Thus China's tourism industry gets a boost from these activities.

The traditional celebrations officially begin a night or two before the actual New Year arrives and go up to the 15th day of the first month of the New Year. This is a great time to have fun and do business in China as people are happy and cheerful and willing to spend their money as well!

Every home receives a systematic cleaning for welcoming the New Year. The ill fortunes of last year are thrown away and the house is decorated and purified for welcoming the good fortune of the coming year.

The practice of coloring the doors and windows in brilliant red has a deeper meaning which has to do with the Chinese New Year. They firmly believe that the red color will save them from coming to harm and keep all sort of evil spirit away.

Then there are the traditional decorations that are put up in the houses such as the paper cuts as well as the couplets that stand for different positive things like wealth and happiness etc. The New Year home decoration items vary from paintings to scrolls and wallpaper designs.

New Year's Eve is a special night according to Chinese tradition and is observed in the traditional method in full passion. All family members come together for supper where they eat jiaozi which is a popular New Year dish consisting of dumplings in boiled water.

The family get together lasts the entire night as they come together to play different games and in recent times they even watch television programs that are dedicated to New Year celebrations. A special effort is made to keep the lights on throughout the night as this practice is believed to give their parents a long and healthy life!

The real day begins with good wishes, presents, lantern parades, Kung fu acts, concerts and other various forms of celebrations that last a whole two weeks and end with the dragon dance with the fireworks on the night of the first full moon putting an end to the display of ancient traditions in modern times.




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