While Christmas is a religious holiday with connections to Christianity, commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Chinese New Year celebration has links to agrarian society when the Chinese used to pray for success during the coming farming year. Later religious practices, like Buddhism and ancestor worship, also attached themselves to the Chinese New Year, also well-known as Spring Festival, is definitely the biggest festival for Chinese people. Like Christmas, Chinese New Year has a splendid history and many traditions, which differ from any other festivals in the world. The date for Chinese New Year changes every year. It is counted according to the Chinese lunar calendar and it is always 1-2 months after China’s shortest day of the year. While Chinese New Year signals the start of the new lunar year, Christmas once fell on the exact date of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and a time traditionally marking the “rebirth” of the sun. Lights. Both Chinese New Year and Christmas dazzle with plenty of lights in decorations and rituals. The presents for Christmas are wrapped and put under a tree. For Chinese, the big gift is money, which is tucked into red envelopes. Of course, the most important part of both holidays is spending time with family. The travel rush in China for Chinese New Year is said to be the largest annual human migration in the world. The Chinese are known for using many different flowers for the Chinese New Year Festival, such as pussy willows, plum blossoms, water lilies, bamboo, and so forth. For example, the reason for using pussy willows for the Chinese New Year is “In Cantonese, “Yin Liu” sounds like “Yin Lou” which is similar to “Yin Liang” (money). The Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) is the major holiday celebrated in China while Christmas is the most important red-letter day in the western world. Those festivals give people a chance to While Chinese New Year signals the start of the new lunar year, Christmas once fell on the exact date of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and a time This year 2011’s Chinese new year day falls on Feb 3, 2010. The official paid day off for the Spring Festival is 3 days. But Chinese government makes it a 7 day holiday by moving the prior weekend and the upcoming one together with these 3 days. Christmas is your Chinese New Year. I’ve heard this phrase uttered countless times by people in China when the holidays roll around, whether it’s Christmas or Chinese New Year. And while I used to think the comparison was a bit of a stretch, over the years I’ve recoginzed that Chinese New Year and Christmas share fascinating, and Chinese Lunar New Year Vs Western New Year: the comparison mainly focuses on different time to celebrate the new year, various activities and respective meanings. The following discussion may help you get a better understanding of the differences between Chinese Lunar New Year and Western New Year. Time to Celebrate While Christmas is a religious holiday with connections to Christianity, commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Chinese New Year celebration has links to agrarian society when the Chinese used to pray for success during the coming farming year. Later religious practices, like Buddhism and ancestor worship, also attached themselves to the A Time to Reunite with Family. To celebrate their New Year, Westerners usually go out to parties with friends or other large public events. In contrast, the New Year is the biggest chance for Chinese families to reunite (similar to how families get together for Christmas). For example, Chinese New Year’s is celebrated some time in March; while Hindu New Year is celebrated in October, and so forth. The New Year that is celebrated popularly today on 1 st January is according to the widely used Gregorian calendar, which is based on old Roman calendar and the Julian calendar that succeeded it. The typical Chinese New Year is celebrated with the family sitting together and having the New Year's Eve dinner at home. One of the dishes that will definitely be on the dinner table is Chinese dumplings, because they are shaped like the old golden ingots that were used as money in the old days, and they symbolize wealth and prosperity. The Chinese New Year feast, typically on Chinese New Year’s Eve, also features one or more meat dishes; however, fish is much more common than alternatives such as chicken and pork. Unlike Christmas, Chinese New Year is not a religious holiday. However, many Chinese dishes are closely tied to ancestor worship and other ancient traditions. New Year saw some unfortunate events in Shanghai a couple of years ago and Hong Kong prior. Events that may cause a stampede are disapproved, it was never a big thing ex-HK. Spring Festival is of course bigger, though much less big than it used to be. What Major Traditions and Customs Are Associated with Chinese New Year? Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, is a time for family reunions, festive meals, and various customs that symbolize good luck and prosperity. Key traditions and customs associated with Chinese New Year include: 1. Reunion Dinner 2. Chinese New Year is celebrated a few weeks after the Christmas holiday, but these major holidays have many similarities. chinese new year story nian. The Chinese New Year is steeped in legends, but there is one centuries-old legend that best explains the origin of the festival. According to the legend, the Chinese people would always plan to celebrate the Spring festival, but there was a mythical monster called Nian that would come to terrorize the villagers. The
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