Spring Festival

Spring Festival	Spring Festival

Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. All the traditional festivals in China are based on the Chinese lunar calendar. The Spring Festival marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year. In Chinese, we also say Guo Nian, meaning keeping off the monster of Nian.

Since the Spring Festival marks the first day of a brand new year, the first meal is rather important. People from north and south have different sayings about the food they eat on this special day.

In Northern China, people usually eat Jiaozi or dumplings shaped like a crescent moon. It is said that dumplings were first known in China some 1,600 years ago. In Chinese pronunciation Jiaozi means midnight or the end and the beginning of time. According to historical records, people from both north and south ate dumplings on Chinese New Year's Day. Perhaps because Southern China produced more rice than any other area, gradually, southern people had many more other choices on New Year's Day.

Nowadays, most people in China's rural areas still hold to these traditional celebrations, However, as the pace of life continues to quicken in the cities, urban residents have taken up new ways to celebrate the Chinese traditional New Year. For example, many city dwellers no longer bother to send out greeting cards. Instead, they use the telephone to convey greetings to relatives and friends.