The Chinese Lunar New Year's Day is comming

Dear old friends and new friends, the Chinese Lunar New Year is coming soon. The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together, just like Christmas in the West. All people living away from home go back, becoming the busiest   time for transportation systems of about half a month from the Spring Festival. Airports, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded with home returnees. Of course, this year, because of the epidemic, many people in foreign places can not return home.

Strictly speaking, the Spring Festival starts every year in the early days of the 12th lunar month and will last till the mid 1st lunar month of the next year. Of them, the most important days are Spring Festival Eve and the first three days. The Chinese government now stipulates people have seven days off for the Chinese Lunar New Year. And, what do Chinese people do to prepare for such a big holiday?

House Cleaning

To clean houses on the New Year Even is a very old custom dating back to thousands of years ago. The dust is traditionally associated with “old” so cleaning their houses and sweeping the dust mean to bid farewell to the “old” and usher in the “new”. Days before the New Year, Chinese families clean their houses, sweeping the floor, washing daily things, cleaning the spider webs and dredging the ditches. People do all these things happily in the hope of a good coming year.

Buying necessities

Half a month before the New Year, people begin to buy and stock meat, vegetables, fruits, dried fruits, candies, etc., which are needed during the Spring Festival, because many vendors do not do business during the Spring Festival. They also buy new clothes and have haircuts. It means a new beginning for the New Year

 New Year Feast

Spring Festival is a time for family reunion. At that time, all family members eat dinner together. The meal is more luxurious than usual. Dishes such as chicken, fish and bean curd cannot be excluded, for in Chinese, their pronunciations, respectively "ji", "yu" and "doufu," mean auspiciousness, abundance and richness. The food eaten on the New Year Even banquet varies according to regions. In south China, It is customary to eat 'niangao' (New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) because as a homophone, niangao means 'higher and higher every year'. In the north, a traditional dish for the feast is dumplings. After the dinner, the whole family will sit together, chatting and watching TV. The Spring Festival party broadcast on China Central Television Station (CCTV) is essential entertainment for the Chinese both at home and abroad.