Chinese Lunar New Year

In China, we generally do not celebrate the solar calendar, which people in western nations do, but rather the lunar calendar. In fact, just as its name “Lunar”, this unique Chinese calendar was created based on the moon, whereas the solar calendar is related to the sun. In the typical western countries, people usually say “Happy New Year” to each other to celebrate this annual important holiday. But what about the Chinese people? Do we have some different words, different customs? Or just typically the same?

Actually, we do not have different sentences, but we do have different customs. In China, we just say “Xin Nian Kuai Le” to each other to celebrate the New Year in Lunar Calendar, which means “Happy Chinese New Year” in English.

What we have in China is some unique cultural stuffs. At the midnight on New Year Eve, Children often say some good words to the elders. For example, they may say something like “Season’s greetings and sincere wishes for a bright and happy New Year”, or “A cheery New Year hold lots of happiness for you“. In return, they much get some money from their parents, uncle, aunt, or grandparents, called “Ya Sui Qian”. This amount of money is not aimed to be spent, but press down evil and blest peace.

Another significant difference between western New Year and Chinese New Year is that we have firecrackers. At the midnight, we often set off those firecrackers, with huge explosion, aiming to remove all the evils in the next entire year, pretty the same as the “Ya Sui Qian”.

Finally, we have another custom of cleaning the whole house before the New Year Eve. In China, we do not want the old dirty things to exist on the first day of the next year.