Chinese New Year Essay

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“Just as you usher in lights, lanterns and other forms of illuminations to welcome the New Year, may the New Year usher in for you new hopes, dreams and aspirations.” (Quote) This is but one of the many greetings of Chinese New Year’s that the Chinese population share and just as we will be ushering in a new semester late January, in china they will be preparing to usher in the Chinese New Year which will fall on Jan. 28 2016. Even though it starts early in January, the Chinese people will be preparing by cleaning up their homes and shrines for the joyous celebration that will last 15 days. Although they don’t have a ball drop in Tokyo like we do in New York, they have far more traditions such as the passing of the red envelope that I will …show more content…

One of the traditions you will see most often is the Red Packets. Red packets are passed out to children by elders, married couples, and adults. The packages will contain yuan and is believe to keep the children healthy and suppress evil. (“Chinese New Year Traditions.”) Many people will also clean and decorate their house with Fu, Papercutting and door gods. Fu or upside down character of Fu (which means luck) will be posted because upside down it means coming, as in luck will come to those who post it. Door gods are decorative pieces which are placed on the side of an entry to ward off evil spirits. (“Chinese New Year Crafts.”) Some of the more popular foods eaten during the fifteen days of Chinese New Year are dumplings, New Year Cake, Tang Yuan, and LaBa Congee. New Year Cake is a solid cake with glutinous rice flour together with some sugar, it is most popular in eastern china. Tang yuan however is a small ball of glutinous rice flour served in boiling water. They can be filled or unfilled and are traditionally eaten on the fifteenth day or the Lantern Festival. LaBa congee is a mixture of rice, nuts, and beans cooked together. LaBa Congee is usually served at the LaBa festival, which is the 8th day of the last month of the year. (“Chinese New Year Food.”) The final foods eaten are of course noodles and dumplings, throughout the festivities they are eaten because noodles represent long life and dumplings represent wealth because they are similar to silver or gold ingots. During Chinese New Year the people celebrate by writing poetry on the lanterns as well and posting poetry throughout the house. In this poem you can clearly see how the New Year is reveled and enjoyed by the

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