The Spring Festival is known as the most important Festival in China. During the holiday, people go back to hometown from everywhere no matter how far the distance is. They prepare various delicious food and presents for the Spring Festival Eve. Chinese will have a happy family union in the Spring Festival Eve, they believe that’s the end day of last year and they will stay up for good luck until the first day of next year. In China, the most traditional and popular Spring Festival food is dumpling, which looks like the moon with vegetables and meat mixed in it. The Chinese name of dumpling is “JIAO ZI”,”JIAO” means ”cross”, ”ZI” is Chinese traditional time represents “24:00”, so the Chinese word “JIAO ZI” means “cross 24:00”, just the dividing point of last year and next year. So when it comes to 24:00, every family begins eating dumplings.
节日风俗
Firecracker is also necessary for Spring Festival, the story of Firecracker is: Long ago, in a small village, there appeared a savage animal called “NIAN”, this animal always came out to eat people in the Eve. One day, villagers found three things can make “NIAN” scared: Red color, Fire and noise. So when “NIAN” came again, villagers put up red paper on the door and set firecracker everywhere. After that, “NIAN” disappeared from that village. Now putting up red paper on the door and setting firecracker becomes Spring Festival customs and people believe doing these will bring their family safety. Spring Festival is also the happiest time for children, because they can get red envelope containing money as a gift from the elder. During the Spring Festival, any unfortunate word cannot be heard because it will make people upset and unhappy. People also make use of this holiday to visit their relatives and bring them some presents and well-wishing.
