Chén jié Chinese Spring Festival & Lunar New Year

Chén jié Chinese Spring Festival is the time in China when nearly all Chinese nation heads towards railway stations, airports or bus depots. Most of them, who are away from their ancestral homes for education or jobs, return home to celebrate the festival with their parents and other loved ones in a befitting manner.

The Spring festival commences with the Chinese Lunar New Year and marks the departure of the outgoing year and welcoming the New Year. The history of this festival is over 4,000 years and is the most important annual festival for the Chinese. Festivities commence from the first day of the first month of the Chinese Lunar New Year and continue till the 15th. According to traditions, preparations for celebrating the festival begin from 23rd of the last month of the outgoing year. Governmental organizations and offices observe a week’s holiday, while educational institutions enjoy a month’s vacation as Spring Festival holidays. This traditional festival is the time to visit one’s parents and elders and enjoy the festivities with them just like in the west Christians rush home for Christmas or in the Muslim world, the faithful endeavour to go to their ancestral home to observe Eid.

The Spring festival is also known as Nian (??). According to folklore, during the rule of the Song Dynasty (17-11 Century BC), in the mountains, there lived a horrible demon creature named Nian. Every year, on the first day of the year, the creature would awaken and descend upon the village.

He would eat all the grain and livestock. Thus, every New Year day, people would try to frighten Nian away with fireworks and red colour. Traditionally, the Chinese decorate their homes and hearth with red, wear red dresses and use fireworks to frighten Nian away.

Every year, in the last week of the outgoing Chinese Lunar year, preparations for the Spring Festival commence. Children and women prepare red dresses. Delicious food items are cooked. Homes are cleaned inside out, and doors and windows are decorated with red paper cut flowers, dragons and animals. The Chinese are traditional people and remember their ancestors. Special prayers are held to bless the souls of the deceased after placing their pictures prominently. All preparations are completed by the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, which is known as Choshi. Any Chinese who is unable to reach home for the Spring Festival remains sad.

On the New Year’s Eve, the entire family sits down to enjoy the reunion dinner, for which preparations were being made for weeks. Various traditional dishes and delicacies are offered. There are red envelopes for the children containing monetary gifts.

It is known as Hóngbao. Special dumplings are also prepared and served as part of the New Year’s Eve dinner. In some dumplings, coins are placed. Anyone who finds the coin is considered very lucky.

The whole family waits for midnight, when the old year terminates, and the New Year begins. People come out in the streets to enjoy the festivities.

Fireworks light up the sky. While people rejoice at the commencement of the New Year, simultaneously, they recall the achievements and losses of the past year, including the loved ones who departed to the next world.

In Southern China, people prepare a special dish on New Year’s Eve, known as Tangyuán, which is a Chinese dessert made from glutinous rice flour mixed with a small amount of water to form balls and then either cooked and served in boiling water or sweet syrup (sweet ginger syrup, for example), or deep fried. It is supposed to signify togetherness.

Yuán Xiao Jié: Lantern Festival is observed on the fifteenth night of the first month of the Chinese Lunar Year. Closely connected with the Spring Festival, the Lantern Festival is the first grand celebration following it.

The day is not a public holiday since the events related to the Lantern Festival are held at night. It is also known Yuán Xiao, which is a traditional Chinese dish.

On the night of the Lantern Festival at the stroke of midnight, since it is the 15th night of the moon, there is moonlight everywhere. The Chinese people light their lanterns and let them rise in the sky. Within minutes, the whole sky is lit up with coloured lanterns of all shapes and sizes. People amass outside their homes in droves to enjoy this beautiful scene.

The tradition of the Lantern Festival is also more than two thousand years’ old. On this night, the Chinese celebrate and participate in numerous activities. According to tradition, besides lighting lanterns and setting them free in the sky, there are fireworks, people solve riddles, there are cultural events of song and dance and people partake of the delicacy of Yuán Xiao.

Last year the global pandemic COVID-19 struck when the Chinese people were departing for their homes to celebrate the Spring Festival. Acting in a responsible manner, the Chinese government imposed a strict lockdown to protect the people from the ravages of the deadly disease and the Chinese had to miss out on mass celebrations.

It goes to China’s credit and resilience that it managed to sanitize its teeming millions, provide relief, food and much needed medicines and even set up hospitals in record time to support the beleaguered people.

Chinese leadership led from the front, visiting COVID hotspots, supervising relief and encouraging its scientists and researchers to find a vaccine to provide immunity.

This year our Chinese brothers have a lot to celebrate their lunar New Year—the year of the Ox—since this animal is gifted with great patience and a desire to make progress, uninfluenced by others or the environment, but persist in doing things according to their ideals and capabilities.

While the world is still reeling from the economic impact of the pandemic, Chinese leadership managed to maintain a steady growth, develop an effective vaccine to combat Corona and even share the fruits of their labour with the rest of the developing world, especially Pakistan – Happy Chinese New Year.