Chinese New Year
Chinese Dragon Dance
Penang is the place to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Malaysia.
Because of cyclical lunar dating, the first day of the year can fall anywhere between late January and the middle of February. This year Chinese New Year is on February 14th, 2010. — The Year of the Tiger. If you were born in 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, or 2010 - you were born under the sign of the Rat.
THE TIGER
2010, 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950
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Full of life, those born under this sign are fearless, noble and bursting with vigour. They are affectionate, generous and have a great empathy for fellow human beings. Their rebellious nature attracts them to adventure and deeds that call for action instead of deliberation. Optimistic, tigers have a great lot of spunk and would rather die trying than give up on their ideals. But beware; tigers are loners who don’t care much for company in their quests. Though spunky, they are essentially big babies who need their egos stroked often, and boy do they have huge ones! They are high-strung and easily tense up over trivial matters, allowing jealousy and possessiveness to get into the way of better judgement. Reckless, irreverent and rebellious, tigers think rules are created only to be broken.
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Preparations tend to begin a month from date of the Chinese New Year (similar to a Western Christmas), when people start buying presents, decorations materials, food and clothing. A huge clean up gets underway days before the New Year, when Chinese houses are cleaned from top to bottom, to sweep away any traces of bad luck, and doors and windowpanes are given a new coat of paint, usually red. The doors and windows are then decorated with paper cuts and couplets with themes such as happiness, wealth and longevity printed on them. Dinner is usually a feast of seafood and dumplings, signifying different good wishes. After dinner, the family sit up for the night playing cards, board games or watching TV programs dedicated to the occasion. On the day itself, an ancient custom called Hong Bao, meaning Red packet, takes place. This involves married couples giving children and unmarried adults money in red envelopes.
The origin of the Chinese New Year is too old to trace; but the tales about it are quite interesting. Legend has it that there was a beast called Nian (which means "year" in Chinese) that would come to China the night before the new year began (according to the Chinese Calendar) and prey upon the people. One of the legends has it that Nian had a very big mouth and that he would swallow a great many people with every bite.
One day an old man came to the rescue of the people, he said to Nian, "I hear that you are a very capable beast, but do you think that you could swallow the other beasts of prey instead of people, who are not worthy opponents" So Nian started to swallow he other beast which were harassing the people anyway. After that the man disappeared riding Nian, it turns out that the man was really an immortal god.
The old man told the people to put up red decorations on their windows and doors at each year's end to scare away Nian in case he came back. Nian lived in fear of the colour red.
The people celebrate the New Year by putting up red paper and lighting fire- crackers to scare away Nian.
They say the words "Guo Nian" which mean both, "Survive the Nian" and "Celebrate the year." The word "guo" in Chinese means both observe, and pass-over.
Another tradition of the Chinese people is to wear bright costumes to attract the god of the universe who is supposed to come back at the beginning of the New Year.
The climax of the Chinese New Year lasts only five days including New Year's Eve, but the New Year season is one month long. During the New Year Celebration there is a lot of business and travelling conducted by the Chinese.
There is a lot to the celebration of the Chinese New Year. The people start to prepare themselves for the five-day New Year celebration a month in advance.
At the end of the five-day celebration the people start again to prepare for the lantern festival, which takes place about ten days later. The holiday of the New Year lasts about one month. |
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The five-day celebration is the most important part of the Chinese celebration. The people will do no cooking, except reheating, during these five days, and the shops will be closed. During the month before the celebration takes place chicken, fish, and pork are dried; eggs are preserved, and vegetables are pickled.
All food preparation is done in order to be ready for the many guests who will be coming.
On the first day of the five-day celebration, the day of New Year's Eve the people visit family and friends and bid farewell to the old year. Between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. "incense is lit and placed on a table that has been arranged to meet the spirits who will descend to earth" (Hou-Tien). After 11:00 offerings are made to the gods. "The gods are asked to bring peace and prosperity." The people then have a great feast as the festivities of the New Year sound on the streets throughout the night.
On New Year's Day the people all dress in new clothes and spend the day with their families. They exchange gifts; some of these gifts are gifts of money wrapped in red and gold paper. This money is to be spent throughout the holiday. Food is kept warm all day for visiting family. The tradition is to eat dumpling soup; whoever bites into the dumpling with the surprise in it is supposed to have good luck throughout the year.
The second day of the New Year is for visiting family. Money trees are put out as a sign of prosperity.
The third day of the festival is marked with fire-crackers and the Dragon Dance. This is also the day for the beginning of the Lion Dance, which lasts through the fifth day.
(Read about < Chinese New Year >)
The fourth day is a day for people, even strangers to drop in and visit wherever they like.
The fifth day of the New Year is for visiting family who are far away, a day of travel and reunion. On this day all of the shops re-open and the people can cook again.
The Lantern Festival begins about ten days later, with the first full moon of the New Year, this lasts three days. During these three days decorated lanterns are hung, the people wear white in honour of the moon and moon cakes are eaten.
The Lantern Festival, comes from the time when the Chinese People would go in search of spirits with burning sticks. They thought that the spirits could be seen during a full moon.
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