{"id":62,"date":"2009-02-28T23:10:46","date_gmt":"2009-03-01T03:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=62"},"modified":"2009-02-28T23:10:46","modified_gmt":"2009-03-01T03:10:46","slug":"chinese-new-year-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/chinese-new-year-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese New Year Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

As evidenced by my recent posts, the Chinese New Year is no small affair.\u00a0 What do people in China do during the new year celebrations?\u00a0 Children are among the happiest, as they collect \u7ea2\u5305<\/strong> (red envelopes) which have money from relatives and family friends.\u00a0 The money inside the envelopes is referred to as \u538b\u5c81\u94b1<\/strong> (keep age down money).\u00a0 The most popular program watched on the night of the new year is the \u6625\u665a<\/strong> (new year’s eve program).\u00a0 Prior to the program, families gather around the table to eat \u5e74\u591c\u996d<\/strong>(new year’s eve meal), complete with homemade (not in all cases) \u997a\u5b50<\/strong> (dumplings).\u00a0 Anyone and everyone stays up until midnight, a process known as \u5b88\u5c81<\/strong> (staying up for the change in age).\u00a0 Firecrackers are set off, dating back to an old tradition that held that there was a monster called the \u5e74<\/strong> (year) who feared the color red and could be scared off by loud noises.\u00a0 Families’ doors will have couplets known as \u6625\u8054 <\/strong>(specifically vertical couplets positioned on both sides of a door positioned with auspicious words) on them, and along the top will be pasted a \u6a2a\u5e45<\/strong> (a piece of red paper containing one 4-word auspicious phrase).\u00a0 During the day, people visit their relatives in a process known as \u62dc\u5e74<\/strong> (new year well-wishing).<\/p>\n

\u7ea2\u5305 hong2bao1 – red envelope(s) containing money given during new year’s
\n\u6625\u665a chun1wan3 – short for \u6625\u8282\u8054\u6b22\u665a\u4f1a, it’s the gala broadcast by CCTV every new year’s eve<\/span>
\n\u538b\u5c81\u94b1 ya1sui4qian1 – money to press one’s age down
\n\u5e74\u591c\u996d nian2ye4fan4 – new year’s eve meal
\n\u997a\u5b50 jiao3zi3 – dumplings
\n\u5b88\u5c81 shou3sui4 – where families pass the new year and reflect on the past year’s events
\n\u5e74 nian2 – here “year” but it also refers to a mythical beast from long ago
\n\u6625\u8054 chun1lian2 – couplets pasted on a door bearing auspicious words
\n\u6a2a\u5e45 heng2fu2 – a rectangular piece of paper pasted above the door frame to complement the \u6625\u8054
\n\u62dc\u5e74 bai4nian2 – to visit people’s houses to wish them a happy new year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As evidenced by my recent posts, the Chinese New Year is no small affair.\u00a0 What do people in China do during the new year celebrations?\u00a0 Children are among the happiest, as they collect \u7ea2\u5305 (red envelopes) which have money from relatives and family friends.\u00a0 The money inside the envelopes is referred to as \u538b\u5c81\u94b1 (keep…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[378679],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-vocabulary","tag-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}