Chinese New Year

1 Lesson Plan 2 | China

INTRODUCTION

RESEARCHING ANCIENT TEXTS

AHP

Doctrine of the Mean

by Kongzi

Recommended for Middle School

Chinese New Year Celebrations

This lesson helps students understand important cultural values that

underlie the celebration of Chinese New Year. Students will conduct

research using videos, PEM Art Cards, interview transcripts, and a visit to

the Yin Yu Tang house at PEM.

We have provided charts to help students integrate their findings from this

lesson with what they are learning from their school texts. Resources that

will help students fill in the left side of the worksheet are identified by the

Art, History, and Philosophy symbol AHP. Resources that will help students

fill in the right side of the worksheet are identified by the Chinese New Year

symbol CNY. Some answers are also provided as examples for teachers.

Kongzi (ca. 551–479 bce), often romanized as Confucius, was a teacher and

philosopher. His writings embody and influence cultural values of correct

behavior and relationships.

These excerpts from the works of Kongzi help identify cultural values

reflected in Chinese philosophy (the left side of the research worksheet).

By the ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth they served God, and by the ceremonies of the ancestral temple they sacrificed to their ancestors. He who understands the ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth, and the meaning of the several sacrifices to ancestors, would find the government of a kingdom as easy as to look into his palm!

The duties of universal obligation are five and the virtues wherewith they are practiced are three. The duties are those between sovereign and minister, between father and son, between husband and wife, between elder brother and younger, and those between friends. Those five are the duties of universal obligation.

From The Internet Classics Archive by Daniel Stevenson (Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, 1994), http://classics.mit.edu.

China Lesson 2

Lesson Plan 2 | China 2

Huang Xiqi (b. 1941) was born and raised in Yin Yu Tang, in Anhui

province, China. Much of what he remembers about Chinese New Year

celebrations is still practiced today.

Sacrifices were offered in front of the pictures of the ancestors, and people would kowtow to them. In the evening, all the members of the family ate their New Year’s Eve dinner together. There were so many dishes that the leftovers would not be gone until the third day of the first month of the new year. This food was called the “crossing the year extras,” and it symbolized that there had been a surplus in the past year and would be more in the new year. After the New Year’s Eve dinner, children would greet the seniors and receive from them money believed to safeguard their lives in the coming year. People would not sleep until midnight, and firecrackers then ushered in the new year.

The first day of the new year was the beginning of the Spring Festival. In the morning of that day, both adults and children would wear new clothes and worship ancestors in front of their pictures. The worshippers would be arranged from the eldest to the youngest. Then they would drink “good business tea” and eat “long life noodles” and “gold ingots” (boiled eggs with tea flavor and salt), along with cakes and red bean soup. The male members of the family would go out to worship in the Huang ancestral hall. On that day, when people met one another, they would offer best wishes. Using knives, scissors, and needles was not allowed. They would also not cook stir-fried foods, because in the Chinese language, the pronunciation of “stir-fry” is the same as that of “quarrel.” They would not touch brooms, so as to avoid sweeping away good luck. They would pay great attention to their utterances to avoid any unlucky word or words with similar pronunciations.

From Yin Yu Tang: the Architecture and Daily Life of a Chinese House by

Nancy Berliner ( Tuttle Publishing, 2003), p.105.

Chinese New Year’s Dragon is the story of how one family celebrates Chinese New Year. Each page documents important aspects of the preparations, traditions, and legends that mark this important event.

Sing, Rachel. Chinese New Year’s Dragon. New York: Simon & Schuster

Children’s Publishing Division, 1992, cover.

INTERVIEW RESEARCH

CNY

RESEARCHING USING

SECONDARY SOURCES

CNY

Chinese New Year’s Dragon

by Rachel Sing


DK Eyewitness Book of Ancient China provides a spectacular and informative guide to the history of the great Chinese empire and the customs and traditions of its people. Stunning real-life photographs and lifelike models offer a unique “eyewitness” view of life in imperial China, from its earliest beginnings in the Bronze Age to its final days in the early years of the 20th century.

DK Eyewitness Book of Ancient China. New York: Dorling Kindersley,

2000, cover.

Guo Nian: Passage into a New Year (DVD) Directed by Carma Hinton and Richard Gordon Long Bow Group, created for PEM, 2003 Running time: 16 minutes 38 seconds

New Year festivities in China last two weeks and entail days of preparation. Take a closer look at contemporary celebrations in the rural region of Huizhou, and hear reminiscences of New Years past.

Yin Yu Tang: A Chinese Home Web Site www.pem.org/yinyutang

The Yin Yu Tang Web site is comprised of five thematic sections that provide a unique lens through which the house can be examined, including Orientation, Construction, Ornamentation, Belongings, and Preservation. Content is segmented into distinct “scenes” within each theme. As visitors navigate between scenes, a persistent 3-D model view of Yin Yu Tang reacts to reveal different features of the house. A visual interactive family tree, dozens of audio interviews, hundreds of historical and contemporary photographs, and many videos are sprinkled throughout the experience to make this Chinese home a “living house.”

RESEARCH USING VIDEO

CNY

Guo Nian DVD

Yin Yu Tang Web Site

RESEARCHING USING

SECONDARY SOURCES

AHP

DK Eyewitness Book of Ancient China

RESEARCH USING WEB SITES

CNY, AHP

Yin Yu Tang Web Site


Art objects can provide information about a topic in some of the same

ways that primary and secondary sources can. Look at each card and read

about the images below to help fill out the Cultural Values and Traditional

Practices worksheet.

Lattice screen with vase image, detailArt Card C4AHP

The vase images that appear on the large outer lattices of the first-floor

bedrooms of Yin Yu Tang are emblems of peace and harmony. The word

for vase in Chinese, ping, is a homonym for peace.

Ancestor portraits, detail Art Card C5 AHP, CNY

Ancestral portraits would have been hung in the main reception hall and

venerated by family members during the New Year festivities. Created

after the ancestors’ deaths, these portraits would have been likenesses of

individuals, couples, or multiple generations of family members.

In general, we didn't hang up the ancestor portraits. We’d hang them at New Year’s. Before we’d eat we’d put the chicken, the fish, the meat, etc., all arranged on the table, and light the candles and burn the incense, and receive the ancestors back into the house. Then we would send them off. Only after we had sent them off did we eat.

Huang Xiqi

From Yin Yu Tang: The Architecture and Daily Life of a Chinese House

by Nancy Berliner ( Tuttle Publishing, 2003) p.105.

RESEARCH USING PEM ART CARDS


Yin Yu Tang courtyard skywell Art Card C3 AHP, CNY

Water was considered a symbol of prosperity, and the inward-sloping roofs enabled the flow of good fortune into the families’ hands [and lives].

According to the teachings of our masters, the direction that a house faces is decided by its geomantic location. Where we live, when we build a house, on the first day, before the construction, before breaking ground and laying foundation, a geomancy would be invited to look at the feng shui of the location to determine whether or not there were contradictions between the location and the zodiac signs of the owner. He would determine the foundation according to your surname, age, and time of birth, and the animal representing your birth year, to ensure that the house was located in harmony with the environment.

From Yin Yu Tang: A Chinese Home (Peabody Essex Museum, 2002),

www.pem.org/yinyutang.

Yin Yu Tang entrance with couplets, detail Art Card C2

CNY

A chun lian is a special type of two-line poem used for temporary

decoration on the doorway of a house for Chinese New Year (known in

China as the Spring Festival). Each line is written vertically on a strip

of red paper. The first line is placed on the right side of a doorway, and

the second line is placed on the left. Sometimes there is also a short line

written horizontally for the top of the doorway.

These poems are happy, uplifting messages describing the beauty of spring

and conveying good wishes for the coming year. Along with the meaning

of the words, the form of the beautifully written characters conveys

celebration and happiness. They also ward off evil spirits with their red

paper and auspicious words written in black ink.

Students will learn about daily life in rural China through a visit to Yin Yu

Tang, a 200-year-old house. They will also explore galleries that will help

them understand the art and objects inside the house. Students should

bring their Cultural Values and Traditional Practices worksheets.

MUSEUM VISIT LESSONS


Nianhua convey good wishes for the coming year. These characters are

written in the finest calligraphy on diamond-shaped red paper that is

sometimes speckled with gold. Front doors of homes are decorated with

nianhua characters during New Year celebrations.

Materials

◆ 8 x 8 in. piece of paper

◆ black acrylic paint

◆ ¼ inch-wide paintbrush or a thick black marker

Instructions

1. Select one of the following characters:

a. Gong He Xin Xi Happy New Year

b. He Ping Peace

c. Fu Good fortune and prosperity

d. Zhen Truth

2. Using paint or a black marker, write the character on red paper.

3. When the work is dry, hang it on a door.

4. Create one for a friend or neighbor.

Based on Simonds, Nina, et al. Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragon Boats:

A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities, and Recipes.

San Diego: Harcourt Inc., 2002.

ART ACTIVITY 1

Nianhua


Go

ng

He

Xin

Xi

HA

PP

Y N

EW

YE

AR


He Ping

PEACE


Fu

GOOD FORTUNE and PROSPERITY


Zhen

TRUTH


Door god prints come in pairs and are placed each on each side of the

main entrance of a household, guarding the entranceway from malevolent

spirits with their fierce stares and bright colors.

As early as the Han dynasty (206 bce – 220 ce), people started decorating

their doors with words or images carved on peach wood. These images of

the fierce-looking legendary warriors Shentou and Yulei were gradually

replaced by actual historical figures such as Yuchi Gong and Qin Shu Bao,

military generals who played important roles in the first Tang Emperor’s

court (626–649).

Materials

◆ Door god worksheets

◆ Crayons, markers, and colored pencils

Instructions

Have students color a pair of door gods, emphasizing that it should be one

of each, not two matching figures. They can then take these home and post

on both sides of the door to their homes.

ART ACTIVITY 2

Making Door Gods


DOOR GOD WORKSHEET 1

Yu Chi Gong


DOOR GOD WORKSHEET 2

Qin Shubao


English Language Arts Strands: 4, 8, 9, 10, 13, 24, 26

Foreign Languages Curriculum Standards: 4

Social Studies Standards:

Grade Six Concepts and Skills: 3, 7 NEA:1

Grade Seven Concepts and Skills: 4, 5, 6, 7

Visual Arts Learning Standards: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10

DK Eyewitness Book of Ancient China. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2000.

Berliner, Nancy. Yin Yu Tang: The Architecture and Daily Life of a Chinese

House. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2003.

Guo Nian: Passage into a New Year. Dir. Carma Hinton and Richard

Gordon, Long Bow Group. DVD. Peabody Essex Museum, 2003.

Sing, Rachel. Chinese New Year’s Dragon. New York: Simon & Schuster

Children’s Publishing Division, 1992.

Simonds, Nina, et al. Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragon Boats:

A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities, and Recipes.

San Diego: Harcourt Inc., 2002.

Stevenson, Daniel. The Internet Classics Archive. 1994. Massachusetts

Institute of Technology. http://classics.mit.edu.

Yin Yu Tang: A Chinese Home. Dec. 2002. Peabody Essex Museum

www.pem.org/yinyutang/. Design by Second Story Inc.

MASSACHUSETTS FRAMEWORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY


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HIN

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Chinese New Year

Documents

Transcript of Chinese New Year