Chinese New Year markets
| Chinese New Year | |
|---|---|
| Official name | Ancient Chinese: 歲首; literally: "year's start" |
| Also called | Lunar New Year, Spring Festival |
| Observed by | The Chinese Mainland China Hong Kong Macau Taiwan Malaysia Singapore Vietnam Indonesia Philippines |
| Type |
Cultural, religious (Chinese folk religion, Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Daoism) |
| Celebrations | Lion dances, dragon dances, fireworks, family gathering, family meal, visiting friends and relatives (拜年, bàinián), giving red envelopes, decorating with chunlian |
| Date | Chinese lunar new year |
| 2016 date | Monday, 8 February, Monkey |
| 2017 date | Saturday, 28 January, Rooster |
| 2018 date | Friday, 16 February, Dog |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Related to |
Lantern Festival, which concludes the celebration of the Chinese New Year. Mongol New Year (Tsagaan Sar), Tibetan New Year (Losar), Japanese New Year (Shōgatsu), Korean New Year (Seollal), Vietnamese New Year (Tết) |
| Chinese New Year | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Spring Festival (Chinese New Year)" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters
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| Traditional Chinese | 春節 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 春节 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "Spring Festival" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Chūn jié |
| Wade–Giles | Ch'un1 chieh2 |
| IPA | Template:IP Ac-cmn |
| Wu | |
| Suzhounese | Tshen tsìh |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | Chēun jit |
| Jyutping | Ceon1 zit3 |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | Chhun cheh |
| Tâi-lô | Tshun tseh |
Chinese New Year, also known as the "Spring Festival" (simplified Chinese 春节; traditional Chinese 春節; Pinyin: Chūn Jié) in modern Mainland China, is an important Chinese festival celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. Celebrations traditionally run from the evening preceding the first day, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first calendar month. The first day of the New Year falls on the new moon between 21 January and 20 February. In 2017, the first day of the Chinese New Year was on Saturday, 28 January, initiating the year of the Rooster.
The New Year festival is centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and customs. Traditionally, the festival was a time to honor deities as well as ancestors. Chinese New Year is celebrated in countries and territories with significant Chinese populations, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mauritius and Australia, and the Philippines. Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the lunar new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors.
Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese New Year vary widely. Often, the evening preceding Chinese New Year's Day is an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for incoming good luck. Windows and doors are decorated with red color paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "good fortune" or "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity". Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes. In about one third of the Mainland population, or 500 million Northerners, dumplings (especially those of vegetarian fillings) feature prominently in the meals celebrating the festival.
It is one of the world's most prominent and celebrated festivals, with the "largest annual mass human migration in the world".
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Wikipedia