Spring Festival
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).
The Origin of Spring Festival
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.
One legend goes that the beast Nian had a very big mouth
that would swallow a great many people with one bite. People
were very scared. One day, an old man came to their rescue,
offering to subdue Nian. To Nian he said, "I hear say
that you are very capable, but can you swallow the other beasts
of prey on earth instead of people who are by no means of
your worthy opponents?" So, it did swallow many of the
beasts of prey on earth that also harrassed people and their
domestic animals from time to time.
 After
that, the old man disappeared riding the beast Nian. He turned
out to be an immortal god. Now that Nian is gone and other
beasts of prey are also scared into forests, people begin
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.
However, people today have long forgotten why they are doing
all this, except that they feel the color and the sound add
to the excitement of the celebration.
Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day
of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The
15th day of the new year is called the Lantern
Festival , which is celebrated at night with lantern displays
and children carrying lanterns in a parade.
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