Chinese New YearBy: Jason Phuong

The Origin Of Chinese New Year• The Origin of Chinese New Year• 2009-12-08 By Carolyn• • The Chinese New Year is now popularly known as the Spring Festival because it starts from the Begining of Spring (the first of the

twenty-four terms in coodination with the changes of Nature). Its origin is too old to be traced. Several explanations are hanging around. All agree, however, that the word Nian, which in modern Chinese solely means "year", was originally the name of a monster beast that started to prey on people the night before the beginning of a new year (the new year in terms of the Chinese calendar).

•the beast Nian

• The beast Nian had a very big mouth that would swallow a great many people with one bite. Nian always live in deep sea, but on every New Year´s Eve, it will climb up the seashore and attack animals and humans. People were very scared. So, every year on New Year´s Eve, people have to run away and go into mountain to avoid the attack of Nian.

• On the New Year´s Eve of this year, when people were paking for going to the mountain as usual, an old man came to their rescue, offering to subdue Nian. Everyone didn´t believe he can do that but they failed to persuade him to run away. finally, people all went to the mountain, left the old man alone to stay.

• When the beast Nian was going to break into village as usual, the old man suddenly fired the crackers, the huge sound scared Nian and made it horror-stricken badly and never dare to keep toward front walk. Here, the old man in red came out and laughed, Nian turned pale with fright and ran away in a flurry.

• The next day ,when people came back, they found there was nothing damaged. originally, the old man was an immortal god.Now that Nian was gone, people began to enjoy their peaceful life. Before the old man left, he had told people to put up red paper decorations on their windows and doors at each year´s end to scare away Nian in case it sneaked back again, because red is the color the beast feared the most.

• From then on, the tradition of observing the conquest of Nian is carried on from generation to generation. The term "Guo Nian", which may mean "Survive the Nian" becomes today "Celebrate the (New) Year" as the word "guo" in Chinese having both the meaning of "pass-over" and "observe". The custom of putting up red paper and firing fire-crackers to scare away Nian should it have a chance to run loose is still around, and then become the most ceremonious Chinese traditional festival "Spring Festival".

These Are the Animals of the Zodiac. They Are the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Monkey, Goat, Rooster, Dog, and the Pig.

Food

• We eat fish, or 魚 ㄩˊ . We always don’t eat part of the fish so we will have some left next year.

• We also eat rice cakes and other good foods.

Clothes

• During the New Year, everyone wears new clothes to celebrate. Dogs celebrate too!

Money

• We get red envelopes during Chinese New Year.

Celebrating

• Everyone fires firecrackers and have a parade with lions and dragons to chase away the bad luck and welcome good luck.

Happy New Year!