Spring Festival is upon us and families around the country are finishing their preparations to welcome the Lunar New Year. We’ve already told you about things you can expect and phrases which may come in handy during the festival. By now, you may be able to communicate with a few native niceties and know not to waste your time lining up at any tourist attractions. As we sit on the cusp of the Year of the Rat, let us dig deeper into the traditions and explain what each day during CNY stands for and introduce intriguing customs that even some locals may never have heard about.
First Day
The first day of Spring Festival is called ‘Yuan Ri’ (元日), meaning the beginning of the year. On this day, people light fireworks or crackers from midnight to welcome the gods from the heaven. Legend has it that at this time each year, a monster called ‘Nian’ (年) would harass the villagers. Later, villagers learned the weakness of the monster (the color red and the sound of explosions) so they started to light fireworks and erect spring couplets. This is why Chinese people refer to celebrating Chinese New Year as ‘Guonian’ (过年), which originally meant conquering the beast.
In some places, the first day of CNY is also known as the ‘Birthday of the Broom.’ As a result, it is considered bad luck to use a broom and clean up the house. Ancient people believed that good luck would be ‘swept away’ on this day, which may explain the tradition of spring-cleaning on New Year’s Eve.
Moreover, the first day is dubbed the ‘Day of the Roosters’ because Nüwa, the mother goddess of Chinese mythology, created roosters on her first day of creating the world. People in some regions of China will celebrate this day by putting up paintings of roosters.
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