Chinese Language Blog

Spring Festival

Tomorrow is the official start of the Spring Festival, China’s longest and most important holiday. As China follows the lunar calendar, the Spring Festival is also known as Chinese New Year. The madness of the chun yun travel rush is still going on, but most people should already be home by now. Today, on New Year’s Eve (除夕 – chú xì), families all around China will gather together to ring in the New Year. Students have a nice long break, while most workers are off for a week. The festival itself lasts for 15 days, culminating with a bang (literally) and the Lantern Festival (元宵节 – yuán xiāo jié). This festival has a long history, as well as plenty of interesting customs and traditions. For a basic rundown of this traditional Chinese festival, here’s a video from “The Coolest Stuff on the Planet”:

Much has been said about the Spring Festival here at the Chinese blog over the years. In case you missed it before, here are all of the posts with short descriptions so you can get all caught up:

• Spring Festival Part One – In this post, we discuss the basics of this very important festival, as well as the fascinating backstory. Why do Chinese people wear red? Why do they light off so many fireworks? You’ll know after reading this.
• Spring Festival Part Two – A lot goes into getting ready for such a big celebration. Learn how Chinese families prepare and get ready to ring in the New Year with this post, which discusses New Year’s Eve traditions such as placing coins inside of “lucky” dumplings.
• Spring Festival Part Three - As has previously been mentioned, the Spring Festival lasts for 15 days. Find out what people do on these days in this post, which includes Buddhist traditions, lion dances, and much more.
• Spring Festival Days 2-15 – This one is sort of an elaboration on the previous year’s Part Three write-up, as it has more details about what people do throughout the many days of the festival.
• Red Envelopes – Why do children love the Spring Festival so much? Well, other than having a long holiday from school, the fact that adults give them red envelopes stuffed with money probably helps…
• Superstitions and Traditions – Why shouldn’t you get a haircut in the first month of the New Year? Why do Chinese people hang the character for good fortune (福 – fú) upside down? Well, you’ll just have to read this post to find out!
• Chinese Zodiac Calendar – Are you well versed in the Chinese zodiac calendar? Do you know the 12 animals and which years they represent? What does it all mean, anyways!? You’ll know a lot more once you finish reading this one.

The Year of the Snake

Speaking of the Chinese zodiac calendar, we’re about to enter the year of the snake (蛇 – shé). If you’re interested in learning more about Chinese horoscopes and what it means to be a snake, this website is full of great information.

As an American living in China, the fact that I get to celebrate a New Year twice never gets old. On December 31st, it’s champagne and a party or concert; on the eve of the Spring Festival, it’s dumplings and fireworks. To all of our incredible readers out there, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year (新年快乐 – xīn nián kuài lè)!

Here’s a question to get you practicing your Chinese by talking about the Spring Festival:

How are you planning to spend the Spring Festival?

(你打算怎么过春节？- nǐ dǎ suàn zěn me guò chūn jié)

The Spring Festival, also known as Chinese New Year, is China’s longest and most important holiday. This festival has a history going back thousands of years, and there are tons of interesting customs and traditions associated with it. Learn more about the Spring Festival while learning a lot of useful Chinese vocabulary with this video.

春节 – chūn jié

Spring Festival

黄金周 – huáng jīn zhōu

Golden Week

商代 – shāng dài

Shang Dynasty (1600-1100 BC)

年 – nián

Nian

鞭炮 – biān pào

firecrackers

红色 – hóng sè

red

过年 – guò nián

pass the year

春运 – chūn yùn

Spring Festival rush

福 – fú

good fortune

福倒了 – fú dào le

“fu” is upside-down

福到了 – fú dào le

good fortune has arrived

除夕 – chú xī (FIRST TONE!!)

New Year’s Eve

年夜饭 – nián yè fàn

New Year’s family dinner

饺子 – jiǎo zi

dumplings

年糕 – nián gāo

New Year cake

年年有余 – nián nián yǒu yú

Have leftover/extra every year.

年年有鱼 – nián nián yǒu yú

There is fish every year.

春节联欢晚会 – chūn jié lián huān wǎn huì

Spring Festival New Year Gala

相声 – xiàng sheng

cross-talk

红包 – hóng bāo

red envelope

生肖 – shēng xiào

Chinese zodiac

蛇年 – shé nián

Year of the Snake

恭喜发财 – gōng xǐ fā cái

congratulations and be prosperous

新年快乐 – xīn nián kuài lè

Happy New Year

春节快乐 – chūn jié kuài lè

Happy Spring Festival

A common sight around Spring Festival.

It’s that time of the year again. With just a few days to go before the beginning of China’s most important festival – the Spring Festival (春节 – chūn jié) - millions upon millions of people are getting ready to head home. This annual mass migration is known as the Spring Festival rush (春运 - chūn yùn), and it is the biggest in the world every year. Although the festival itself only lasts for 15 days, this intense period of travel lasts for about 40. In 2008, the number of passenger journeys during this period hit over 2 billion – more than the total population of the country. Getting a train or bus ticket becomes virtually impossible at this time, for a few reasons.

A short news clip about this year’s travel season, set to be the biggest on record.

Migrant Workers

The main reason for the madness of Chunyun is the fact that the millions of migrant workers (农民工 – nóng mín gōng) in the big cities do everything they can to make it back to their hometowns to ring in the New Year with their family. With more and more economic opportunities sprouting up in the big cities, especially on the east coast, the number of migrant workers has increased rapidly. During the Spring Festival, a reverse migration occurs, as these workers flee the smog-filled cities where they earn a living to return to their rural homes. As few migrant workers can afford the luxury of air travel, they all end up competing for coveted bus and train tickets. It’s not uncommon to find tons of people sitting on the floor or standing on train rides of over 30 hours. Spring Festival is all about family reunion, so everyone does everything in their power to not be left alone.

People talking about going home for the holidays last year.

College Students

Thanks to education reforms, the number of students enrolling in university in China has also increased dramatically. Most of these college students (大学生 – dà xué shēng) end up studying far away from their hometown. As an English teacher in a prominent university here in Beijing, I can attest to that fact – my students come from all over the country. During the Spring Festival, all of these students go on winter holiday (寒假 – hán jià), which of course means heading back to their hometowns, often by train. At least for the students, they can get a jump on the working folks, which brings us to the final point.

Workers on Holiday

The Spring Festival is one of two one-week holidays in China that are known as Golden Weeks (黄金周 – huáng jīn zhōu). Along with China’s National Day, the Spring Festival is a time when most people get a whole week off of work. During this time, many people in the mega-cities such as Beijing and Shanghai will also head back to various hometowns to visit relatives. With more and more Chinese entering the middle-class, tourism is booming in the country at that time. Of course, folks with more disposable income choose to forego the woes of domestic travel by instead jetting out to Europe or tropical destinations like Thailand or the Maldives.

Trailer for the documentary film “Last Train Home,” which is all about Chunyun.

With such high demand for tickets, an abundance of temporary ticket offices are set up around the holiday. Tickets also go one sale earlier than usual, and the offices keep longer hours to try and handle the massive influx of costumers. Of course, with so many people desperate for a ticket, the market for scalpers (黄牛 – huáng niú – lit. “yellow bull”) has been huge around the Spring Festival. In an effort to curb the illegal re-sale of tickets, China recently instituted a rule that says passengers must present a valid ID when purchasing a ticket and then show the same ID when checking in for a train. This has caused a drastic drop in the amount of scalpers and illegal tickets, and it has at least taken some of the misery out of the travel period.

As for yours truly, I learned long ago not to even attempt domestic travel during the Spring Festival. Unlike my students, I don’t have a Chinese family reunion to get back to. As such, I avoid train and bus stations like the plague for those two weeks and get the hell out of dodge by flying somewhere warm – Thailand in 2011, Mexico last year, and the Philippines this year. Don’t get me wrong, I love the history and traditions of the Spring Festival; I’d just rather be sitting on a beach with a fruity cocktail in one hand and a book in the other than be fighting massive crowds of people to cram on an oversold train. Wherever and however you choose to spend the Chinese New Year, I’ll leave you with a common Spring Festival greeting – best wishes for a prosperous year (恭喜发财 – gōng xǐ fā cái)!