Chinese New Year Eve is a very important traditional holiday in China, which is known as Family Night. This special celebration takes place on January 27, 2017. However, there is no specific date for New Year’s Eve in New Calendar because the Lunar Calendar changes yearly.

The earliest New Year’s Eve can be is at the end of January; the latest date is in February. This timeframe is somewhat similar to the Gregorian version.

Chinese New Year’s Eve is a day that welcomes new beginnings and is celebrated with family. Traditionally, it was a day to expel evil and bad luck. There are many activities to do during the Chinese New Year’s Eve, such as family dinners and post-festival couplets. Families

create window grilles, hang lanterns (that represent eternal luck), burn firecrackers (because it is really fun), and take the time to worship Tudigong.

The most exciting activity for children is when adults give them famed red packets; known as lucky money. Adults give children the joyous red packet as a hope that the children will have a healthy and auspicious year.

The preparations for the Chinese New Year are to clean homes and prepare special dinners that include many types of dishes. Another preparation is that people have post-festival couplets on their doors and celebrate by saying the lucky word, “Fu”. The word, “Fu”, needs to be posted upside down because doing so, brings families good luck.  

Festival Couplets portray clear and delicate text. This stylistic expression demonstrates the joy within the Chinese culture through this traditional holiday. The festival couplets are meant to express good wishes and are a unique literary form in China.

There are some holiday prohibitions that you cannot perform. For example, a family must worship before having dinner. If a family does not show this respect, it is viewed an inauspicious event. It is also important that people do not break the dishes because it causes greater amounts of bad luck on the holiday.

People cannot wear all black or all white during New Year’s Eve because it is not respectful and causes misfortune. However, people do wear other colorful clothes, like red, to represent luck and happiness.  

In addition, people should not utter any of the cursed words like “dead,” “kill,” or “ghost”. These words do not indicate respect towards your family, which in Chinese culture is very important to uphold.

Traditional culture brings a lot of exciting activities. This holiday is meant to be spent with family, so show love to your family on this special occasion!

– Cuishan Ma