All About the Chinese New Year

This day is called 'Xiao Nian' (little new year) and families begin to prepare for the upcoming festivities. Families should eat meals together at home to honor the stove god who is said to return to the sky to give a report of their family to the emperor. People will eat melted sugar in hopes that the stove god will speak well of them so that they may have good luck in the coming year.

On this day families will begin to clean their homes so that they will have a fresh start in the New Year. Their cleaning symbolizes the sweeping away of the bad luck and misfortune of the old year. Chinese people will also put away needles, knives, scissors and anything else which is sharp so that they can remain safe during the Chinese New Year.

Traditionally families gather together, married couples go to the husband's home, and stay up well past midnight (sometimes they stay up the entire night) making their traditional main food which is based on their home town. For Northern Chinese it is dumplings and for Southern Chinese it is meat or vegetable filled steamed bread. They will make more dumplings than they can realistically eat to ensure that they will have enough food in New Year, but they will not be cooked until after midnight. Sometimes a coin will be placed in several dumplings and the ones who eat those will become wealthy. Parents will feel fortunate if their son finds a coin. Now living in the North, my husband's family makes dumplings for hours while watching the national Chinese New Year's gala on television. This gala is a recent addition to the festival, only beginning in the 1980's. At midnight families will set of a string of fire crackers.

Depending on the location and the family, Chinese people will either stay up a few more hours and get a little rest (think from 2-5 a.m. or so) or they will continue the festivities by going out to the homes of family and friends to wish them a happy New Year. These will be quick, more formal visits, to wish each other well in the New Year.

In some areas the women are the ones who stay at home to recieve the visitors while the men go out to do the visiting. Everyone will have a vast array of fruits, nuts and candies for their guests to eat. Younger people will visit the elders first to show respect while children will be given Hong Bao (red envelopes) full of money. Adult children will give their parents money or other gifts.

People will put on new, red clothing in celebration of the New Year. Before lunch the eldest son goes outside to light more firecrackers. Though not a tradition, no one can speak at this time due to the simple fact that it's impossible to hear anything during the half hour before lunch! Northern Chinese eat dumplings (the ones that were made the night before) for their first meal of the New Year. While my husband's family will eat meat and vegetable filled steamed breads along with a dozen or more dishes made from other meats and vegetables!

On this day the festivities are more relaxed. Families spend time together, friends eat meals together and kids play with their friends. Just a day to visit and eat, nothing much else!

On the third day of the Chinese New Year married women and their families return to the wives parents home for the noon meal. It is said that once married, a woman no longer belongs to her parents and is considered an outsider. When the deceased relatives come down from the sky duirng the Chinese New Year's Eve, Chinese New Year's Day and the second day of the New Year, they will not be happy to have an outsider among the family. Thus the story goes. My husband has two sisters, both married. One is too far away to return but the other sister lives in the same town as both her parents and her in-laws so she follows this custom. It is also said that the entire duration of the Chinese New Year festival should be spent with the husband's parents during the first three years of marriage. We followed this during our first two years, but the third year my son and I were in America. My in-laws were not too happy about this, but due to logistics of travel and work, that's how it happened.
Women should also take gifts to thier parents, but they should be in mulitples of two (such as two bottles of oil or four bottles of juice) as odd numbers are considered unlucky. In some areas the woman's parents will only accept part of the gift and the rest will be returned to the husbna's parents

It's still a month before the New Year, as I write this, but already the shops in our tiny town are beginning to stock the shelves full of snacks and beverages. My husband has been out to dinner three nights in the past week; usually he eats out just once or twice a month. This will probably continue until after the holiday.

We'll be staying at home, eating with my in-laws for most meals during the "Golden Week" (as the meida calls it). Traveling is far to crazy at this time of year, prices go up considerably and we don't have a car so we're at the mercy of public transportation.

The New Year is over now and I'm certainly glad all the noise from the fireworks are gone! I never sleep well for several days during this month long celebration! I did enjoy lots of good food and minimal time in the kitchen, thanks to my mother in law who is a good cook. At some meals we had over 20 different foods! She spent about two hours preparing each meal. My son got several red envelopes, meaning money...none of it was actually given in a red envelope, and looks forward to buying chocolate (his favorite thing in the world!) with some of it. The rest is getting set aside for college.

Children, up until their teenage years or so, will receive gifts of money in Red Envelopes from family and friends. (In my husbands family they just give the money directly to the kids, they don't bother with the red envelopes.) Depending on the family and the relationship the amount could be 100 to 1000 yuan (about $15 to well over $100). Some parents will either hide the money under the children's pillows or give it to them directly after the children kowtow and wish them health and prosperity. We haven't done this yet with our son as he's just now 2 years old and could care less about a few pieces of pink paper (the money). It is said that children can use the money to bribe the dragon, Nian, to go away if he comes to them.

The Chinese New Year means new decorations for the main door of the home. Chun lian, three rectangular pieces of paper containing a skillfully written rhyming poem, are pasted around the door (a short one above and two longer papers on either side). Families will also place a paper containing the character fu in the middle of the door, but it is placed upside down because of a play on words to mean that fortune will come to them in the New Year.
Red paper cut outs will be taped to the windows for decoration. Usually the cut out will be the animal from the Chinese Zodiac. 2011 will be the year of the Rabbit.

In ancient times, before the Chinese invented firecrackers, families would light a fire on Chinese New Year's Eve and place bamboo inside. It would make loud, cracking sounds to scare away the monster Nian. This monster was said to come at the end of winter and eat people. Making these fires would protect the people from Nian. Now fireworks are used in place of fires and Chinese still set them off to scare away Nian.

It's important for Chinese to get their hair cut before the New Year for both pracitcal and superstitious reasons. Practically speaking, barbers shut down the shops for two to three weeks, at least here in our small town they do. But more importantly, to Chinese who follow traditions to a T, is that if you get your hair cut between the New Year and the Lantern Festival, fifteen days after the New Year, your uncle (mother's brother) may die. Yikes! My husband's mom's brother is still alive, and heaven forbid that we jeopardize that in anyway, so my hubby will have his hair cut later this week or next so that he can go about a month between cuts.