Chinese New Year Now - Modern Activities

Spring Festival, widely known as Chinese New Year in the West, is the most important traditional festival, and most important celebration for families in China.

1.3 Billion People Are on the Move — Traffic Is in Chaos

It seems the whole nation is on the move during the festival. The festival is the busiest travel season in China, when trains and buses are fully packed. Even flight tickets are hard to get.

Chinese people do whatever they can to go home to see their families: buying a ticket from scalpers at several times the price, queuing for three days, fighting for a ticket to stand for more than 20 hours in an over-packed train, or riding a bus with 20 extra passengers on stools down the aisle for 12 hours or more.

China's migrant workers are the main force during this migration. They carry large and heavy bags full of their worldly possessions and gifts, traveling generally from China's rich east back to their hometowns

Red Envelopes — the Most Popular Gifts

Like Christmas in the West, people exchange gifts during the Spring Festival. The most common gifts are red envelopes. Red envelopes have money in, and are given to children and (retired) seniors. It is not a customs to give red envelopes to (working) adults

Lucky Decorations Everywhere

Every street, building, and house is decorated with red. “Red” is the main color for the festival, as it is believed to be an auspicious color. Red lanterns hang in streets; red couplets are pasted on doors; banks and official buildings are decorated with red New Year pictures depicting images of prosperity.

As 2015 is the year of goat, decorations related to goats will be commonly seen. There are red goat dolls for children and New Year paintings with goats on.

Rarely Seen Cultural Activities to See

Many cultural activities occur during the festival. Rural areas and small towns retain more traditional celebrations, such as setting offfirecrackers, ancestor worship, and dragon dances. Setting off firecrackers and fireworks are common during the Spring Festival season all over China; dragon dances and ancestor worship less so in the city.

At temple fairs in many Chinese cities traditional performances can be seen: dragon dances, lion dances, and performances representing palace events like an emperor's wedding. A great variety of traditional Chinese products are on offer there, and strange Chinese snacks, rarely seen the rest of the year. Beijing's temple fairs are held in parks from the first day of the lunar year to the Lantern Festival.

In North China people perform various versions of the Rice Sprout Song(扭秧歌 Niǔyāng Gē /nyoh-yang ger/ ‘twist sprout song'), a traditional Chinese dance performed by a group of colorfully-dressed women and men

Foods with Lucky Meanings Are Eaten

Certain foods are eaten during the festival because of their symbolic meanings, based on their names or appearance.

Fish is a must for Chinese New Year as the Chinese word for fish (鱼 yú /yoo/) sounds like the word for surplus (余 yú). Eating fish is believed to bring a surplus of money and good luck in the coming year.

Another traditional Chinese New Year food is Chinese dumplings. Because the shape of Chinese dumplings looks like silver ingot - a kind of ancient Chinese money, Chinese people believe eating dumplings during the New Year festival will bring more money and wealth for the coming year.

Other New Year food includes spring rolls, glutinous rice cakes and Sweet Rice Balls.

A Season of Superstitions — How to be Lucky in 2015…

Chinese people believe that, as the Spring Festival is the start of a new year, what you do then will affect your luck in the coming year. There are many taboos for the Spring Festival season. These taboos usually apply up to a month before the festival and continue to the end of the festival (day 15, the Lantern Festival). They are strictly followed in rural areas by the older generations, but the younger generations and people in urban areas may not know them.

• Some Chinese people believe that they mustn't do cleaning and wash their hair in the first three days as that will sweep/wash away good luck.
• A cry of a childis believed to bring bad luck to the family, so the young are placated fastidiously.
• Toask for a loan is a big "no-no".
• Another interesting thing is thered underwear. You will see red underwear sold at supermarkets and street markets. Red is believed to ward off bad luck and misfortune. For the people born in a year of the goat (1919, 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003), red underwear is a must for 2015.

To pray in a temple during the Chinese New Year is said to be blessed, and will lead to a smooth coming year. In Shanghai, China's biggest city, thousands flock to Longhua Temple, the city's biggest temple, praying for good fortune.