China Travel News

Spring Festival is regarded as the most important traditional festival in China. Chinese people do lots of things to celebrate it.

Before the Spring Festival every year, people are very active to do shopping to buy necessities for the lunar New Year, make new clothes, thoroughly clean houses, paste New Year pictures and paper scrolls bearing auspicious antithetical couplet in the house, offer sacrifices to Kitchen God, enjoy a family reunion, stay up all night to "see the year out," have a sumptuous dinner on the Spring Festival Eve, eat laba porridge and spring pancakes, enjoying themselves to their hearts´ content.

In addition, people do some Chinese Knots to decorate the houses. Chinese Knots are the propitious things which can bring good luck. They are also the typical local arts of China. Chinese people have known how to tie knots using cords ever since they began learned how to attach animal pelts to their bodies to keep warm thousands of years ago. As civilization advanced, Chinese people used knots for more than just fastening and wrapping. The knots are pulled tightly together and are sturdy enough to be used for binding or wrapping, making them very practical. Furthermore, the complicated structure of the Chinese knot allows all kinds of variations and enhances its decorative value.

Another interesting custom is that people send the red packets each other to express best wishes. The cash wrapped up in red paper forms a red packet which symbolizes fortune and wealth in the coming year.

All these customary activities during the Spring Festival have been inherited and evolved from various kinds of ancient ceremonies for praying for good fortune over the past thousands of years, and each of them has special historical significance.