Chinese New Year, Spring Festival or Lunar New Year, is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. In culture chinese and East Asian countries, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival because the spring season in the lunisolar calendar traditionally begins with Lichun.
Chinese New Year, of the sun, the moon and Nature
The Chinese New Year is associated with several myths and customs. The festival was traditionally a time to honor deities and ancestors. In China, regional customs and traditions regarding the celebration of the New Year vary considerably, and the evening before New Year's Day is often considered a family occasion. Chinese to gather for the annual reunion dinner.
It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean their homes to sweep away all bad luck and make way for good fortune. Another custom is decorating windows and doors with red paper cuttings and couplets. Popular themes among these paper cuttings and couplets include good fortune or happiness, wealth, and longevity. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes.
According to the tales and legends, Chinese New Year began with a mythical beast called the Nian (a beast that lives under the sea or in the mountains) during the annual Spring Festival. The Nian would eat villagers, especially children, in the middle of the night.
One year, all the villagers decided to hide from the beast. An older man appeared before the villagers could hide and said he would stay the night and take revenge on the Nian. The old man placed red papers and lit firecrackers. The next day, the villagers returned to their town and found that nothing had been destroyed. They assumed the old man was a deity who had come to save them.
The villagers then understood that Yanhuang had discovered that the Nian were afraid of the color red and loud noises. Then, the tradition developed around the New Year, and the villagers would wear red clothes, hang red lanterns and red spring rolls on windows and doors, and use firecrackers and drums to scare the Nian.
From then on, Nian never returned to the village. He was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, a former Taoist monk. After that, Nian retreated to a nearby mountain. The mountain's name has long been lost over the years.
There is also a saying that the beast is "Xi," rather than Nian. The Spring Festival included New Year's Eve and the New Year. Xi is a kind of weak monster, and Nian is not related to animal beasts in terms of meaning, it is more like a mature harvest. There is no record of the beast in ancient texts; it is only in Chinese folklore. The word "Nian" is composed of the words "he" and "Qian." It means that the grain is rich and the harvest is good. Farmers review the harvest at the end of the year and are also full of expectations for the coming year.
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Today is the Chinese New Year. Traditions vary greatly in the Chinese cultural sphere. It's an opportunity to see the family, eat together and exchange a red envelope with money to scare away the demon Nian. #mythology #myth #legend # # calendar new Chinese
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