Chinese New Year
Trip Start
Nov 17, 2006
1
5
19
Trip End
May 09, 2007
Neili,
Taiwan
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Chinese New Year celebrates the first new moon of the lunar year, falling somewhere between January 21st and February 20th by our calendar. The festivities last for 14 days, ending on the first full moon of the new year. This year's New Year starts pretty late, on the 18th of February. A legend that I rather like says that there was once a man-eating beast named 'Nian' (the modern Chinese word for 'year') that would sneak into houses on the last night of the year to devour the occupants, until it was discovered that the beast could be scared away by loud noises, explosions and the colour red
01 - New Year Paper Decoration
. These customs led to the first new year celebrations - "guo nian", meaning 'to celebrate the new year' literally means 'the passing of the nian beast'.Chinese New Year also marks the start of a new astrology sign. The Chinese Zodiac works on a 12 year cycle, where A different animal symbolises each year, with people born in that year imbued with their qualities. It's a bit more complex - there's element and yin and yan aspects in addition to the animals - if you want to read more, you can look up Chinese Astrology on www.wikipedia.org. This year is the Year of the Pig (As was 1983 - I've heard 'your' year is generally bad luck, eek!)
As far as Chinese festivals go, this is definitely the climax of the year - like the furor that builds up to Christmas at home, there's lots of shopping and preparation going on way ahead of the New Year itself. There's a lot of things to do! It's customary to give your home/work/anywhere a major clean to sweep out the bad luck of the last year and get the house ready for the good luck of the new year. Not just a quick spring clean either - EVERYTHING is cleaned, new furniture is bought, window and door frames are painted red. The school was even fumigated in preparation! People also try to invite the new luck in with red banners around the doors covered in lots of auspicious phrases. There's lots and lots of decorations - most of them are hung upside down because the word for 'upside down' sounds similar to the word for 'arrive', so by hanging the good luck sayings upside down, it invites in the good fortune. A lot of Chinese superstitions are based on homophones for good or bad things. Like, the number four is generally avoided because it sounds similar to the word for death. Other decorations are plastic models of ancient Chinese ingots to symbolise prosperity, models of strings of firecrackers, and lots of figures of that year's astrology animal. This year is the Year of the Pig, so there's a lot of golden pigs around! There's also a lot of candy and cakes which are considered lucky, but I'm not sure why. The shopping and preparation is insane - this week stalls and markets have popped up all over the place. The road I walk to work on in the morning has been terrifying the last few days. Think of the crush in the supermarkets on Christmas Eve - now imagine that with the food all over the sterrts instead of on nice shelves. People selling things from the pavement, from the back of a van, a scooter, in the middle of the road... Now imagine all the people pushing and shoving, but from a scooter. It's chaos, complete utter chaos!
Other important things are wearing red (red is very important, almost everything associated with New Year is red) to scare away the evil spirits and bad fortune. People also wear new clothes to symbolise a new beginning. Firecrackers and fireworks are everywhere as well, again to scare away evil spirits. And those damn firecrackers really are pretty scary! There's lots of them tied on one string, and man are they loud! It sounds like a machine gun from a film or something horrid like that. I suppose it works though... The last few days people have been letting them all hours of the day and night - in the afternoon when you can't even see them, and then whole barrages at 3am when no one is awake to see them. grrrr....
Another important tradition is the giving of "hong bao", basically long red envelopes the size of a banknote. Elders and married couples give the envelopes to children and unmarried adults during the New Year celebrations. There's always money inside - at school they were super generous enough to give the kids a dollar each (A little under 2p...) in their red envelope!
The celebrations really start to kick off on New Year's Eve, when the whole family gets together for a reunion dinner. Apparently this is the largest human migration in the world, with people going incredibly long distances sometimes to the home of the most senior family member. It's the only time of year it's possible to get a direct flight to China from Taiwan - the rest of the year you can only fly to Hong Kong. I have to get a train that day, eek! New Year's Eve Dinner is the rough equivalent of Christmas Dinner - the whole family together, and all kinds of lavish food. A lot of fish is eaten (but in Taiwan, that's nothing new!), and dumplings too. The dumplings look a little like fat ravioli - they are considered lucky because they resemble (vaguely) the shape of ancient Chinese gold ingots. New Year's all about bringing prosperity and fortune... Pineapples, apples, fish, taro (kind of like turnip but a bit purple inside) and oranges are all important at this time of year. Apparently pineapple is lucky because it looks like a phoenix, which signifies new beginnings. I don't see it myself though!
Over the next couple of days a lot of visits to family are made, and Lion Dances are also popular. The Lion Dance is to banish evil spirits and invite good fortune (big surprise...). We 'performed' one for the kids at the New Year's party - it was a bit of a joke, just a load of foreigners half heartedly shaking a few bits of material, but there are specialist lion dancing troupes that put on amazing shows. There's two people in each lion, one the back legs and one the front, and by various acrobatic tricks, they make the lion dance and wiggle. They kind of look like a small dog, but it's really lifelike, with lots of tricks and jumping around. The dance often is accompanied by traditional drummers and gongs as well.
The last day of Chinese New Year is celebrated in Taiwan with the Lantern Festival. The streets are filled with amazing displays of different coloured lanterns - mainly red, (another surprise!) but there can be huge 'picture' displays too. Lanterns can be simple sphere shapes, or can be very ornate. There's a big display in Taipei every year filled with lanterns of that year's animal, so look out for giant pig photos soon! The festival came from the old 'lover's day', a day when young people were accompanied into the streets with matchmakers busily trying to pair them all up. The brightest lanterns signified good luck and hope. Solving riddles is popular too.
So, there you have it, a quick intro to Chinese New Year. In a nut shell, it's a time to be with your family to welcome good fortune and good luck in the new year. But my favourite part? I get a week off work!
