Chinese New Year Animal and Belief (part 1)
Summary
- Chinese New Year is also referred to as Spring Festival (Chun Jie).
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Chinese New Year lasts about 15 days and is followed by the Lantern festival.
Colored Paper Lanterns
- If you want to visit China during this time, try to go 2 or 3 weeks before the festival starts. During this time, transportation is chaotic.
- The twelve Chinese New Year animals are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep (or ram or goat), monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.
- Traditionally, it was considered bad luck for a Chinese girl to be born in the year of the horse. However, this point of view is gradually changing in the modern day.
- The reason for three animals in the same category (sheep, ram and goat) is that the Chinese character for sheep represents all three animals.
- A baby born in the year of the pig is considered to be the luckiest baby.
- Chinese people believe that if the New Year animal is the same as the animal for the year you were born, then lots of life-changing events will occur for you. For example, if you were born in the year of the ox and 2009 is the year of the ox, then 2009 will be an important year.
- Fish is the symbol on Chinese New Year because it represents abundance and wealth.
Chinese New Year vs. Spring Festival
Since New Year is about to start, so I think this is the most appropriate article to write. New Year for Chinese people is like Christmas in the West. This is the most decorated holiday for Chinese people, and as a matter of fact, for all of Asia as a whole. Commonly, Chinese New Year is referred to as "Chun Jie" or Spring Festival.
In China, people call this day Spring Festival and not Chinese New Year. So, if you are a tourist during this time, be aware that Spring Festival and Chinese New Year are used interchangeably. However, to make it easier to understand, I will use the word "Chinese New Year" more often.
The custom for Chinese New Year is that the celebration will last about 15 days, which normally occurs around the end of January and beginning of February. Lantern Festival will begin right after that. Spring Festival is the most important holiday in China.
And if you want to be a part of the holiday, you should come to China about 2 or 3 weeks before the Spring Festival starts. During this time, transportation will be chaotic.
Now, everyone knows about the twelve Chinese zodiac animals already, so I will not go deeply into it. However, I do want to mention list them again. They are: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit,
dragons Chinese Paper Dragon Decorations
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