Blessings in Chinese New Year
The Spring Festival is the most important and traditional festival in China. There are plenty of traditions of Spring Festival. For instance, family should reunite and have dinner together at Lunar New Year’s eve and people give red envelopes to the children. And my family usually plays Mahjong during the Spring Festival. Besides these traditions, new year blessing is also indispensable for us.
The most common saying is “Xin Nian Kuai Le,” which is “Happy New Year” in English. I believe all the Chinese people would say this while blessing other people during the festival. “Gong Xi Fa Cai” is the second most common blessing saying in China. This phrase means that we hope others to earn money and be rich this year. When people give others red envelopes, they often say to each other with this phrase.
What special in China is that there are lots of Chinese words that are combined with four Chinese characters, which are called “idioms.” Idioms are usually hard to translate briefly in other languages, because Chinese people sometimes can use one simple Chinese character to express a long sentence. There are some idioms that we can use during the Spring Festival. “Yi Fan Feng Shun” means everything can go smoothly without any obstacles, and this idiom start with a number “One.” If we try to start with the number “Two,” there’s another idiom called “Shuang Xi Lin Men,” which means two great events would happen at the same time. “San Yang Kai Tai” means “Yang” can defeat “Yin,” and good luck would arrive; this word begins with number “Three.” There are thousands of idioms in China, and we can find lots of idioms which start with different numbers.
We cannot only use idioms with numbers to bless others, we could also use some idioms with animals, colors, seasons, and so on. For example, “Long Feng Cheng Xiang” include dragon and phoenix, which indicates that hope you can have a super wonderful good luck with these two miraculous appears together. “Hong Hong Huo Huo” includes the color “red,” which means that your life is going to be vigorous and thriving in every aspect. “Si Ji Ping An” refers to that your life is going to be safe during the following year, and this idiom contains four seasons and a number “four.”
Chinese culture is extensive and profound, and Spring Festival is a great chance to maintain our culture and tradition. Although some other countries do not have Spring Festival, I hope everyone “Xin Nian Kuai Le, Gong Xi Fa Cai!(新年快乐，恭喜发财！）”
