The Spring Festival is the first day of the first lunar month: the equivalent of the first of January in the Solar Calendar. Chunjie tradionally called danian or guonian is the most important and popular festival to the Chinese community across the world. During Chunjie, northern Chinese eat jiaozi (dumpling) and southern Chinese eat niangao (sweetcake) to celebrate the festival. Words of blessing are written on red paper, called Chunlian and pasted on the door for good luck. Firecrackers are lit to dispel bad luck.

 On Chinese New Year’s Eve, all family members return to their family house to have a feast called nianyefan. A whole cooked fish is always placed on dinner table as the word fish  and the verb to spare have the same pronunciation “yu”  and so the expression niannian you yu implying that one wishes there will always be something to spare every year is represented by the presence of the fish. After dinner, the children will receive yasuiqian  also called hongbao (red envelopes)  from the elder members of the family representing the wish that they will grow well in the coming year. On New year’s Day, people dress in their best clothes will visit friends and say congratulations gongxifacai or xinnian hao happy new year to each other.

Spring Festival lasts a few days and ends with the lantern Festival on the 15th day of the month.

The colour red : There is a legend about the origin of the New year’s Celebration. Long ago in a village a savage beast came out of a deep forest on the last day of every year to feed on the villagers and their domestic animals.  People found out that the beast was afraid of the colour red and loud noises, so they pasted the red couplets, chunlian on the doors and lit firecrackers, bianpao to scare it away.

This year we are about to enter the Year of the Tiger ; It is the third animal in the cycle of the 12 animals ; It starts with the rat  followed by the ox and then the Tiger and next year we will be in the year of the rabbit .