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2-1-2016
The Origin of Chinese New Year
Haiwang Yuan
Western Kentucky University,
[email protected]
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Yuan, Haiwang. (2016). The Origin of Chinese New Year. SMS-I-Media Tourism Express, 1 (1).
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Origin and Customs of the Chinese New Year1
Haiwang Yuan, Professor from Western Kentucky University
Guest Professor from CFL, Nankai University
Author2
“What date is the Chinese New Year?” The Chinese ask themselves every year, but few
can answer it off the top of their head. Believe it or not, they have to refer to the Chinese calendar
to get the answer. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, which means it shows elements of both the
lunar and solar calendars. The Chinese use the Gregorian calendar to live their daily lives while
using the Chinese lunar calendar to observe their traditional festivals and conduct their folk
activities. Based on the moon’s revolution around the Earth, it is about 11 days shorter each year
than the solar calendar. To synchronize with the time the Earth needs to rotate around the sun, the
Chinese ancestors added a leap month to their calendar every two or three years. The Chinese New
Year falls on a different day each year somewhere between the late January and February. For
example, the last Chinese New Year Day fell upon February 19, 2015; the coming one, as I am
writing this article, on February 8, 2016; and the next after the next will be on January 28. How
do I know? Well, I checked my smart phone’s Chinese calendar.
The Chinese lunar calendar divides a year into 24 jieqi (solar terms) of 15 days each. The
first term is referred to as Lichun Beginning of spring). The others are Yushui (Rain Water),
Jingzhe (Waking of Insects), Chunfen (Spring Equinox), Qingming (Pure Brightness), Guyu
(Grain Rain), Lixia (Beginning of Summer), Xiaoman (Grain Full), Mangzhong (Grain in Ear),
Xiazhi (Summer Solstice ), Xiaoshu (Slight Heat), Dashu (Great Heat), Liqiu (Beginning of
Autumn), Chushu (Limited Heat), Bailu (White Dew), Qiufen (Autumnal Equinox), Hanlu (Cold
Dew), Shuangjiang (Frost's Descent), Lidong (Beginning of Winter), Xiaoxue (Slight Snow),
Daxue (Great Snow), Dongzhi (Winter Solstice), Xiaohan (Slight Cold), and Dahan (Great Cold).
The first solar term Lichun (Beginning of Spring) covers the Chinese New Year season. Since the
1
This article is written in both English and Chinese. The Chinese version follows the English one.
Publications in English by U.S. publishers include: Tibetan Folktales, This Is China: The First 5,000 Years, Berkshire
Encyclopedia of China, Celebrate Chinese New Year, Princess Peacock: Tales from the Other Peoples of China, and
Magic Lotus Lantern and Other Tales from the Han Chinese.
2
festival is based on a lunar calendar, it is also called Lunar New Year in Chinese communities all
over the world.
The Chinese have a special way of recording years, a practice that allegedly started from
2600 BCE. Unlike Westerners, who see time progress in a linear way, the Chinese see it advance
in repetitive sexagenary or sixty-year cycles. Each, in turn, consists of five 12-year cycles. Each
year in a sexagenary cycle is named with the combination of two Chinese characters. The first
comes from a set of terms that the Chinese called Tiangan (Heavenly Stems). The names of the
terms are jia, yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xin, ren, and gui. The second character comes from
another set of terms named Dizhi (Earthly Branches). They are zi, chou, yin, mao, chen, si, wu,
wei, shen, you, xu, hai. Therefore, the first year of a Chinese sexagenary cycle is known as Jia-zi
with the first character of the Heavenly Stems combined with the first character of the Earthly
Branches; the second, Yi-chou, with the second Heavenly Stems character combined with that of
the Earthly Stems. This combination continues to create a total of 60 unique terms. A sexagenary
cycle gets its name from the first year therein, namely, Jiazi.
Each of the 12 years in the smaller cycle is represented by an Earthly Branch term
combined with the name of a specific animal. They are known as Zi-shu (Rat), Chou-niu (Ox),
Yin-hu (Tiger), Mao-tu (Rabbit), Chen-long (Dragon), Si-she (Snake), Wu-ma (Horse), Wei-yang
(Goat), Shen-hou (Monkey), You-ji (Rooster), Xu-gou (Dog), and Hai-zhu (Boar) in that order.
Normally people tend to drop the Earthly Branch prefixes and use only the names of the animals
for short. After birth, each Chinese acquires an animal sign, that is, the animal of the birth year
known as shengxiao, which means “birth likeliness” literally.
Many of the Chinese animal names are general terms. This may create tremendous
difficulty in their translation into hair-splitting English. The Chinese yang is a term for all animals
of the ovis genus without reference to gender. The Chinese do not care whether it is a male or
female sheep, goat, or argali. The same is true with shu (a rat or a mouse?), tu (a rabbit or a hare?),
ji (a rooster, a hen, or a pheasant?), and zhu (a boar or a pig?).
Even the Chinese often wonder why the rat or mouse leads the pack while the boar or pig
brings up the rear, why these animals but not others are listed, and why the cat is left out. No one
knows the scientific answer. It is up to mythologies to satisfy our curiosity. One myth tells that the
Heavenly Emperor of Jade, or Buddha in a different version, wanted to help the earthly people
remember the otherwise difficult names of the years formed of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly
Branches. He assigned an animal to represent each of the twelve years in a smaller cycle of the
bigger sextagenary cycle. With countless animals as potential candidates, he let them compete for
the positions in a race. He would pick the twelve reaching him first. The lazy cat had asked the rat,
his neighbor and friend, to wake him up when the race came. However, the rat not only forgot his
feline friend but also tricked the ox. Before they approached the palace of the Heavenly Emperor
of Jade, he found that he was trailing the ox who leading the race and that a river of considerable
width and depth blocked the way. He talked the ox into carrying him on his neck. As soon as the
ox set foot on the other bank, the rat jumped off and darted into the heavenly palace. The pig was
the slowest of the twelve though ahead of the rest of the other animals. When the cat woke up, it
was too late. Ever since, he has become the rat’s natural enemy.3
Unlike the Western zodiac signs that represent the constellations’ movement around the
Sun, shengxiao or the Chinese Zodiac Animals, nevertheless, do not correspond to any of the
constellations. The ancient Chinese assigned that task to the Xiu system translated as the TwentyEight Mansions. Similar to the Indian Nakshatra, it reflects the movement of the Moon through a
sidereal month instead of the Sun.4 The Ancient Chinese saw the sky as divided into four regions,
each of which was home to seven mansions. Each of the four regions is assigned an animal name,
namely, Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, White Tiger, and Vermilion Bird. The 28 mansions also
bear the names of different animals, the majority of which can be found in shengxiao. The other
of the Xiu animals include ape, leopard, moose, deer, wolf, fox, raccoon, swallow, bat, pheasant,
3
Yuan, Haiwang. 2006. The magic lotus lantern and other tales from the Han Chinese. Westport, Conn: Libraries
Unlimited, pp 170-71.
4
(Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-Eight_Mansions.
as well as a couple of mystic creatures. Some argue that shengxiao, or the Chinese Zodiac Animals,
have derived from the Twenty-eight Mansions system.5
In fact, to call shengxiao Zodiac Animals is a bit misleading. Though etymologically the
term “zodiac” has something to do with animals, zodiac is universally understood as related to an
imaginary belt of the heavens with an extended meaning of a circular diagram representing this
belt containing pictures of animals and human figures. The Chinese Xiu system may relate people’s
lives and places with certain constellations, but definitely not the shengxiao animals. The concept
of treating the animals as signs of divination originated from the animals themselves upon the
Earth. Traditionally, the Chinese cherish a belief system based on animalism and naturalism. That
is, gods are manifested in natural objects as well as living creatures. The ancient Chinese believed
that animals behaved differently because they were possessed by the souls of their ancestors with
different personalities. This type of belief was based on the worship of animal spirit totems. Using
compatibility astrology that combines the signs of the Western zodiac and the Chinese shengxiao
is but a contemporary phenomenon.
All the above-mentioned are meant to provide necessary background knowledge for the
Chinese New Year and its celebration. Even the Chinese themselves always wonder how and when
this festival came about. Answers are nevertheless elusive. Basing their studies on archaeological
findings, historians trace activities of Chinese New Year celebration to year-end rituals of offering
sacrifices to gods and ancestors taking place as early as the Shang dynasty (1600-1050 BCE). The
tradition of having the rituals on the first day of the Chinese calendar year was introduced in the
reign of the Emperor Wu of Han (140–87 BCE). The festival was gradually formalized during the
Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) eras. Meanwhile its name evolved from Gaisui (Chang of the
Year) to Suichu (Ending of the Old Year). Later on, the name Yuandan (The First Day) took over
and remained until the founding of the Republic in 1911 when the Gregorian calendar was
introduced. The new government led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen decided to assign Yuandan to the first
day of the Gregorian calendar and named the first day of the Chinese calendar year “Spring
Festival.” While Spring Festival has since become the official name of Chinese New Year, the
5
"On the Relationship between the Twelve Zodiac Animals and the Twenty-Eight Mansions." On the Relationship
between the Twelve Chinese Zodiac Animals and the Twenty-Eight Mansions. March 14, 2015. Accessed December
8, 2015. http://www.pkucn.com/thread-306139-1-1.html.
Chinese outside mainland China still prefer calling it Lunar Year. “Chinese New Year” is a popular
and convenient translation for people of non-Chinese cultural backgrounds. Along with the Han
Chinese in and outside China, as many as 29 of the 55 ethnic minority groups in China also
celebrate Chinese New Year.6 Countries like Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia
celebrate it as their official festival.
Like shengxiao, conveniently translated as the Chinese Zodiac Animals, the origin of
Chinese New Year can only be explained by folklore as well. One of the best-known mystic
account tells that a Nian monster often preyed on living creatures, particularly humans, on the eve
of the Chinese New Year. One year end, a god in the form of a white-bearded old man appeared
from nowhere to protect humans from the attack of the monstrous beast. Before the New Year’s
Eve set in, everyone else had escaped. In anticipation of the beast’s arrival, the god dressed himself
in a red cloak, put up red paper on the frames of the doors and windows. Upon the arrival of the
Nian monster, he set fire to a pile of bamboo sticks, which started crackling loudly. The red color
and the sound scared the beast. The god then subdued it and rode away on its back. Since then, the
Chinese have had the tradition of decorating their houses with red paper and firing firecrackers in
memory of their savior.7
The climax of the Chinese New Year celebration lasts from three to five days. Working
Chinese enjoy a week-long paid vacation including the weekend. Like Christmas, festive
atmosphere starts days before the New Year’s Eve. Apart from a lot of shopping, pre-Chinese New
Year activities also include house cleaning and decorating. Instead of trees, garlands, and lights,
the Chinese decorate their houses with traditional paintings and paper designs of red color. Popular
red paper designs include jianzhi, which is a form of elaborate paper cutting to be pasted mostly
on window panes; diaoqian, literarily meaning “hanging money,” which is a particular type of
paper cutting to be hung from the head of a window, mostly outside the house; fu paper, a square
piece of paper with a Chinese character that connotes good luck to be mounted on walls, door
6
Yuan, Haiwang. 2008. Princess Peacock: tales from the other peoples of China. Westport, Conn: Libraries
Unlimited, p. 20.
7
Yuan, Haiwang. 2006. The magic lotus lantern and other tales from the Han Chinese. Westport, Conn: Libraries
Unlimited, pp 167-69.
panels, and other objects in and outside the house; and couplets, a pair of lines of versed texts of
good wishes written or painted on paper scrolls to be pasted on the door frames.
Chinese children do not wake up to find presents in socks hanging from the mantel of a
fireplace said to have been delivered by Santa coming through the chimneys on his reindeer-drawn
sleigh. Instead they receive them from their parents’ and grandparents’ hands. In addition, they
also receive red envelops of cash from them as well as other senior relatives in return for a
ritualized form of showing their respect. That is kowtow, an act of kneeling while touching the
ground with the forehead. Kowtow must be performed three times, no more and no less.
Kowtowing four times is a ritual dedicated to the dead, including the spirits of the ancestors. It is
a no-no for a living person. This is only one of the many taboos with regard to the celebration of
the Chinese New Year.
Days before the Chinese New Year, every household gives its house a thorough cleaning,
hoping to sweep away ill fortunes and make way for coming good luck. In the same token,
sweeping and cleaning on the first day of the Chinese New Year are not allowed for fear of driving
away the good luck. The time period immediately before the New Year is a time to settle one’s
debt. Traditionally, Chinese believed that owing debts to others was a disgrace, a notion
unthinkable in today’s China, where plastics and mortgages are the order of the day like the
Western world. Apparently market economy is sending this time-honored tradition to the museum
of history.
As on Thanksgiving and Christmas, the atmosphere of family reunion dominates the
Chinese New Year, particularly on the Eve. No matter where they are, so long as they have the
time and money, they try all they can to get back to their homes. A few days before the New Year’s
Eve, public and private means of transportation are overwhelmed with millions of traveling
Chinese, a large number of them being migrant workers. Even with multiplying bullet trains and
private cars, transportation capacities are never sufficient for the sudden surge of passengers on a
national scale within a short period of time. Every year, there are reports of people who, having
missed out on their tickets, motorcycle or even walk back to their homes hundreds of miles away.
To elaborate on the eating customs with regard to the Chinese New Year, one must bear
this in mind: Although more than half of its 1.37 billion people are residing in urban areas today,
China had been predominantly agrarian in the past several thousand years. Due to different climatic
conditions, people south of the Yangtze River known as the Southerners as opposed to the
Northerners who live north of the river, have been more accessible to rain water than in the north.
Historically they grew rice and raised fish while the Northerners farmed wheat and pastured
animals. Consequently, the Southerners are as used to eating rice as the Northern to consuming
wheat. While niangao (fried rice cake) has become the featured dish for the New Year’s Eve in
South China, jiaozi (boiled dumplings filled with meat or vegetable stuffing) is the stake dish of
the north. Both dishes have cultural significance, though. The pronunciation “niangao” sounds like
“The coming year is getting better,” whereas jiaozi signifies the celebration of the New Year. Jiao
means “crossing” or “passing over” and zi, being the first character of the twelve-character Earthly
Branches, means the section of the time that covers the midnight. By eating jiaozi, one says
goodbye to the old year and hello to the new.8
Apart from niangao and jiaozi, fish has become another featured dish on the New Year’s
Eve. It is also culturally significant. The Chinese pronunciation of fish “yu” is homophonic with
and thereby symbolic of “affluent.” Playing on words is also true with fruit. Take oranges and
apples for example. Orange ju sounds close to ji or “good fortune.” Apples ping is understood as
“ping’an,” which means “safe and sound.” Before modern transportation made them available
throughout the country, oranges were more of the Southerners’ favorites while apple, the
Northerners’.
The majority of the Chinese had been adhering to the traditional customs of the Chinese
New Year, particularly the New Year’s Eve, to the letter until the decade-long “Cultural
Revolution” (1966-76), when traditions were considered anti-revolutionary. Most of them were
restored in the following decades only to face the challenge of a market economy and a world of
explosive emerging technologies that offer younger people more options than staying home to
celebrate the New Year with their parents and grandparents in the usual traditional fashion.
8
Another folktale tells that a physician named Zhang Zhongjing invented jiaozi. One winter, an epidemic hit a large
area, Zhang made jiaozi-like dumplings and boiled them in a big pot of soup mixed with medicinal herbs. The sick
recovered from the medicinal soup of dumplings.
Traditionally, all family members feast together at home. An increasing number of families
of younger generations, particularly in urban areas, choose to dine out nowadays. The New Year’s
Eve is exclusively a family night, with no outsiders invited. Parents usually hide a coin or a piece
of tofu (as fu is homophonic with the word that signifies good fortune) in the fillings of a dumpling
while making it. Whoever chances to get the dumpling is considered to have a better luck in the
New Year. No family would be embarrassed if a visitor should grab the good luck. This practice
may have inspired early American Chinese to improvise the fortune cookies, which are unknown
in China.
After dinner, the entire family are supposed to stay up late or even the whole night with
lights on. Some folklorists attribute this practice to the Nian myth: people huddled together bracing
for the onslaught of the Nian monster. Eventually, staying up has become a tradtion known as
showsui, literally meaning “watch for the transition of the year.” In most part of North China, the
entire family are engaged in preparing vegetarian dumplings for the New Year’s first breakfast.
As vegetarian stuffing involves more ingredients and thereby is harder to fix, it makes time go
faster. Another explanation is that meat is considered not as wholesome as vegetables. Vegetarian
dumplings help the family kick off the New Year with a fresh start. While staying up, the family
also enjoy the fun of playing cards and board games. Storytelling is children’s favorite. Since 1983,
however, a near 5-hour TV gala produced by the China Central TV has become part of the tradition
of showsui. With more options of nightlife today, this carefully prepared gala finds it harder and
harder to hold the attention of younger audience.
The striking of midnight comes as a signal to set off firecrackers and fireworks. Nearly
every corner of the country, be it rural or urban, is filled with deafening sound, glaring light, and
suffocating smoke. Although as large as the U.S., China has one-time zone, and it all happens at
once throughout the country. This spectacle pushes the excitement of the New Year celebration to
the zenith. Fire alarms and injuries are always the concern of local authorities. To ban or not to
ban fireworks and firecrackers during the New Year has become their dilemma.
As soon as day breaks, every household wakes up and vies with one another in setting off
their firecrackers once again to tell their neighbors that they become the first to welcome the New
Year and, along with it, the first share of the good luck it will bring. Next comes the most important
event of the day, or rather, the year: New Year greetings among family members living under the
same roof. A very traditional family in the past would love to have four generations together, which
meant longevity, prolificacy, and family unity. By the way, for a son or grandson to break from a
large family was seen as a disgrace. Nuclear families are the norm today, particularly in cities.
Younger members greet their parents and grandparents with the gesture of kowtowing and in return
receive their parents’ and grandparents’ greetings in the form of red envelops of cash, which can
be significant or symbolic pending their financial capabilities. Then comes the breakfast: veggie
dumplings in the North and various vegetarian foods in the South: Shanghainese eat dumplings
made from glutinous rice flour filled or unfilled with nonmeat stuffing, which is usually sweet in
nature. Cantonese eat dishes with vegetables of cultural significance. Take the hair weed fa, for
example. Its homophonic name with “becoming wealthy” makes it an indispensable ingredient in
the dishes.
After breakfast, a day of extending New Year greetings begin, first to neighbors, then to
relatives, colleagues, friends, and even closest friends’ parents. The greeting activities usually
involve giving gifts to relatives and seniors. It was a time for bribery when bribery ran rampant.
To save people from traveling, more and more work units hold parties so that colleagues can get
together and greet one another at the same time. Today, things are changing dramatically. With
ubiquitous mobile devices and social media, the radius of New Year greetings is extending even
around the globe at the convenience of one’s fingers.
On the first day of the New Year, a married woman must stay with her husband at his
parents’ home. The next day is designated for her to visit her own parents, bringing along her
husband. On the second day of the New Year, the streets are filled with couples traveling to the
in-laws’ homes bringing along lavish presents. Women riding behind men bicycling used to be a
spectacle. Today, however, private cars have mostly replaced these fading means of transportation.
Gifts and presents used to be more of monetary value. Today, they are becoming
increasingly symbolic. New Year greetings and visits provide a great opportunity for reconciliation.
Old grudges are more easily forgiven with one party’s proactive gesture when the air is permeated
with goodwill.
A children’s rhyme popular in North China best illustrates the specific customs of the first
three days the Chinese New Year: “Dumplings for the first day; / Noodles for the next; / On the
call of meat pies, / Everyone finds himself home.” Apparently, on the third day of the New Year
season, most employees have to go back to work starting from the fourth day. The third day is a
time to wind down and get prepared. Only teachers and students are happily in the midst of their
winter vacation.
The New Year celebration reaches another climax when the Festival of Lanterns comes on
the 15th day of the first Chinese calendar month, when the moon is full and bright at night. Daytime
activities mostly involve folk dances: lion and dragon dances are the most popular. Other dances,
peculiar to specific regions of the country, include hanchuan (dancing in model boats and donkeys),
gaoqiao (dancing on stilts), and yaogu (dancing while beating waist drums). At night, lanterns are
everywhere, on the streets and squares, in the malls and parks, and even in the hands of children.
The most favored lantern for a child to show off to his or her peers in the neighborhood is the one
with the golden fish design. Lanterns displayed in public vary from simple to elaborate in design
and from small to gigantic in size. In the midst of lantern displays, there are all kinds activities,
the favorite of which being riddle guessing with prizes. Bursts of fireworks and firecrackers
announce the end of this festival and also the conclusion of the New Year season.
The entire country eats the same cultural food on the Lantern Festival: the alreadymentioned dumplings made of glutinous rice filled or unfilled. There are two major kinds of this
type of dumplings: tangyuan (“ball in soup”) and yuanxiao (“very first night”). The former is
popular in South China while the latter in the north. Tangyuan is made of kneed glutinous rice
dough and can be filled and unfilled. Their filling can be sweet or meaty, and their sizes as big as
ping-pang ball or as small as beads. Yuanxiao, on the other hand is prepared by placing cubicshaped dry fillings of sweet ingredients in a large shallow basket filled with moist glutinous rice.
With repeated back-and-forth movement of the basket, the fillings are tumbled and wrapped with
the flour and eventually “snowballed” bigger and bigger to a ping-pang ball size. Both tangyuan
and yuanxiao can be served boiled and deep-fried.
The Chinese eat tangyuan and yuanxiao to observe the Festival of Lantern because their
globular shape is analogous to the shape of the full Moon. In the eyes of the Chinese, the Moon is
more than a heavenly body. Since antiquity, they have attached a great deal of emotions to it,
seeing it as a media connecting people separated by geographical distances. They can share the
sight of it no matter where they are, and compare its waning and waxing cycle to the vicissitude
of their lives. They treat the Moon’s round shape as a sign of family reunion or reconciliation. The
Moon is a significant theme of Chinese literature, and incidentally the Chinese celebrate it not only
on the 15th of the first month but also on the eighth month of the Chinese calendar as the Moon
Festival.
This description of the Chinese New Year celebration can be limited due to its writer’s
personal experience against China’s diversity in local and ethnic cultures. Traditions of celebrating
the Chinese New Year may vary from place to place, but the spirit underlying the diverse Chinese
New Year cultures is the same: a sincere wish of peace and happiness for family members and
friends.