7 facts about the Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year Wishes

Chinese New Year is the most important for Chinese people in the year. Speaking of the Chinese New Year, we may think of many customs that vary from places to places. How much do you know about the Chinese New Year?

On the first day of the New Year or shortly after that, everybody wears new clothes and brings New Year Wishes to their relatives and friends, wishing each other good luck, happiness during the new year. They need to spend more than one week visiting their relatives and bring the new year's wishes to them.

Chinese New Year Wishes is a way that Chinese around the world express their best wishes. Then how should we extend a Chinese New Year greeting correctly? There were two kinds of wishes in ancient China.

1) bow

First, your hands need to overlap each other. Men should let his left hand held his right hand; in contrast, women should let her right hand held her left hand, the man left, a woman right. Then two thumbs should place against each other. It’s called “leaning on each other” in ancient books.

Chinese people would show much respect when bowing. You need to show your respect when bowing. And the bow should be a deep one, especially to our seniors. You should do it correctly. Lower yourself respectfully. Don’t rush or show no cares. Chinese people's values respect a lot some inner attitudes.

Another, when you are greeting people, you can look at them. But when you are bowing, just look down.

2) kowtow

So what should we pay particular attention to when greeting our seniors or our peers? Chinese culture is entirely different from Western civilization. In Western civilization, all are the sons of gods. So, everyone is equal before the god. They are all brothers and sisters. Then usually don’t differentiate people by ages. But for Chinese people, they distinguish people by ages.

You can bow to people of the same age. But for seniors, it’s needed to kowtow. Sometimes, when they pay Chinese New Year visits to our grandparents or another senior, they would kowtow to them. You are your grandparent's granddaughter. So you need to kowtow to your grandparents. It is not shameful to kowtow to your parents.

Some of you may think that kowtow is really out of date. Some even think that it’s a greeting method in feudalism society. Actually, the kowtow has a special meaning in Chinese culture. We can know the difference between a story here.

Many years ago, there was a primary school in a city catching fire. The headteacher was a woman. She rushed into the fire to save out six children. She died then. Later, all six children went to her funeral. If the six children all bowed to her, which is really hard to imagine for Chinese people. So these six children would express their unspeakable gratitude to the teacher who sacrificed life for them, they six children all kneeled down when they saw the coffin. It seemed to be a proper way to kneel down. And they must do this on that occasion.

3) Kowtowed times

During the pre-Qin period, people usually kowtowed for just one moment. They can stand up once as the head touched the ground. And for those especially proud people, such as the emperor (Son of Heaven), the king or Heaven. They might one kowtow was not enough so that they would do it once again. Today, we can still find the word, “kowtow again,” in the ancient Chinese books. After doing one kowtow, then do it again. This was called “kowtow again.” It was the highest etiquette.

Even numbers were preferred by Han people During the Song Dynasty; some people thought that when people went to Confucian temples, they didn’t kowtow enough to fully show their sincerity and respect, so they doubled the number of kowtow to 4.

People in the Qing Dynasty preferred the numbers of 3, 6 and 9. So, they used to conduct threefold kneeling and ninefold bowing during heaven worshipping ceremonies at most. Since the Qing Dynasty Lasted for more than 200 years, this rite had become a familiar tradition to today.

4)Which people should kowtow to?

It’s easy for you to get one from the article named “Li San Ben” (Three Roots of Rites). This indicates that there are three fundamental roots of rites, which we should pay respects to.

The first one is Heaven-Earth (the universe). It’s the root of nature. “Nature” here means life. Where do all things in the world come from? We are all formed by the Yin-Yang of Tiandi. Thus we shall feel grateful and awestruck to Heaven-Earth.

The second one is the ancestors’ root of Families. For example, your family name is Liu. Liu Family has existed since the Xia Dynasty (2100 to 1600 B.C.) until now. Where are you from? Your Liu family continued generation after generation to you. Our Chinese people always value “root” (our ancestors). Therefore during the Chinese New Year period. We would never forget our ancestors.

The third one is Sovereign-Teacher, Human beings are social animals. We live in a group. A group always needs a leader. Therefore, it is indicated in “Li San Ben” that the earth would not exist if there were no heaven. And also without emperors’ leaders, how would countries have been unified instead of having been shattered into pieces? This is where the alleged “Heaven-Earth-Sovereign-Parent-Teacher” in China came from.

When was the word “Nian” 年 (YEAR) firstly brought up?

The word “year” had been mentioned in the Oracle Bone inscription of the Shang Dynasty, more than 3,000 years ago. We can analyze this word in the form of the Oracle Bone inscription from the perspective of philology. Thus we can understand the meaning of “year” from its formation. The bottom half of the word means “people,” and the upper half means “crops.”

That’s mentioned Gushu in ancient books; the “YEAR” refers to the ripening of crops, crops ripen. Gushu doesn’t refer to a famine year. Instead, Gushu means the crops grow up smoothly and ripen. It means “harvest.”

During harvest season, the crops were reaped and tied into bundles. Farmers in the old days could not afford to carry the crops with carriages. Just by themselves with shoulder poles. They put the crops on their heads, even if the crops were put in large pots. When they had pots loaded with crops on their heads, they called it a YEAR, a Shou Nian (harvest year). Shou means acquisition. The word “Nian” (YEAR) refers to harvest here, instead of “year,” which “Nian” usually means.

Until the Zhou Dynasty, the Chinese people been using the word “year” to number the years. That’s when people started using the word “Nian” (year) till now.

The Spring Couplets

1, original of the Spring Couplets

Firstly, people used peach wood as spring couplets. However, with the development of culture, people began to write some auspicious words on peach wood. As we all know, China was a particularly developed country in the poem and verse. Therefore spring couplets occurred generally. Usually, numerous households would use new peach wood or pictures to replace the old ones as spring couplets.

In ancient times, not all households would paste couplets on their doors. When it came to the time of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty, he ordered that every family should paste couplets on their doors in Chinese New Year. So from that time writing and pasting couplets became a great customers all over the world. Then, some intellectuals considered some people were unable to write and read, so they rented a store and put a desk in the room to write couplets for people.

If there is a member in the family fond of calligraphy, he writes a pair of couplets and pastes it on the door that would be amused no matter how his calligraphy is. It would be very proud. At this time, every family would paste couplets on the door. To some extent, it was an exhibition of calligraphy and the Spring Couplets.

2, How to read

As to read couplets, many people may confuse that which is the first line of a couplet and which is the second line.

In ancient times, the words in our books were from up to down and then from right to left. Then, we introduced western mode and the words in books were from left to right. So someone joked that when would nod our heads we would bow our heads while reading western books we would shake our heads.

So, for all couples, the line on the side of your right hand is the first line of a couplet while the line on the side of your left hand is the second line. And it is the same with the couplet. That means the bottom of the right side is the first line of a couplet while the other hand is the second line. And read the top scroll from right to left.

Firecracker

In Chinese New Year, people will set off firecrackers. We can know in the Song Dynasty the firecracker was not the thing we think, it was real bamboo. We know bamboo grows in sections. And there is air in every section. When we bake bamboo in the fire, the air in bamboo will expand for heat. Then the bamboo will burst after the resultant force achieves for the expansion. People thought the crackle sounded very lucky. On the one side, people considered ghosts dare not to appear when they heard this sound, and the following year would be peaceful and happy for driving away ghosts.

Moreover, the crackle sounds lively. In the Song Dynasty, there is a saying “palace lived by the emperor,” here the palace refers to the Forbidden City. When setting off firecrackers in the palace, the sound was so loud that almost all people could hear it. People thought it was a pity that they could only hear this music once a year.

Afterward, in the Song Dynasty, they invented gunpowder. They folded gunpowder in a piece of paper, put a leading line in the paper, and then they got today’s firecracker.

Why will every family still set off firecrackers? It is a kind of custom and culture psychology for Chinese people to set off firecrackers. We just talked that the Chinese New Year was extraordinary. The old year will be over and the New Year will come so there will be no more than two situations. This year is not as good as I expected. So I wish to drive away. That our people called bad things, by setting off firecrackers to welcome a new year. It is such psychology. And those who have a nice year will hope that next year will also be nice. No matter how this year is going people hope that next year will be a better year in this way.

Culture and inheriting

For inheriting our Chinese culture, the Chinese New Year is a career that contains most cultural factors (Chinese new year folk). During the Chinese New Year period, we can mobilize our cultural accumulation, combined with our own emotions to write connotative Chinese New Year cards to others. We can write a pair of spring couplets by ourselves. Our own calligraphy, our learning, and cultivation can be shown by this chance. And the most important is to build a big family's relationship. Just like this year after year, the cultural literacy of our nationality overall would increase year after year.