Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year was known as Spring Festival in ancient time. It is the celebration of the arrival of spring. The ending of the cycle of seasons and the beginning of another. As the Chinese calender year coincides with this day, it's significance as the beginning of a New Year became more important. When China adopted the Gregorian calender ( an the Georgian year), the official name of the festival became Spring Festival once again. To the rest of the world, Chinese New Year simply means the beginning of the Chinese year, the beginning of Spring. This is a time to look back at our past year, and anticipate the year ahead.

The Celebration lasts for fifteen days, within which families and friends will visit each other. It is customary to bring two, four or eight mandarin oranges as gifts when visiting others, and the hosts will have to return equal numbers of mandarin oranges. It is also customary for married people to give 'red packets' (red envelope containing cash) to children and single young adults during the festival.

The first five days is when the main celebrations take place. Traditionally, women are not supposed to visit others during this period, and it is considered inauspicious to receive female guests. This is no longer practiced today. Shops which are closed during the celebration will usually start doing business from the sixth day.

During the fifteen days of celebrations, there certain days with special meaning to certain Chinese dialect groups, and activities abound. The celebrations officially ends on the fifteenth day with the 'Yuan Xiao' also known as Chinese Valentine's day.