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OVERVIEW OF CHINESE NEW YEAR
Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival, one of the traditional Chinese holidays, is celebrated on the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar, which falls on the day of the second new moon after the day on which the winter solstice occurs, unless there is an intercalary eleventh or twelfth month in the lead-up to the New Year. In this case, the New Year falls on the day of the third new moon after the solstice. (The next time this occurs is in 2033.) Celebrated internationally in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered to be the most important holiday for the Chinese as well as ethnic groups such as the Mongolians, Koreans, the Miao (Chinese Hmong) and the Vietnamese, who were influenced by Chinese culture in terms of religious and philosophiocal worldview, language and culture in general.
Chinese new year is also the time when the largest human migration takes place when Chinese all around the world return home on Chinese New Year eve to have reunion dinner with their family
HISTORY OF CHINESE NEW YEAR
A reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve where members of the family, near and far, get together for celebration. The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and traditionally includes chicken. Fish is included, but not eaten up completely (and the remaining stored overnight), as the Chinese phrase "every year there is fish/leftover") is a homophone for phrases which could mean "be blessed every year" or "have profit every year", since "yu" is also the pronunciation for "profit". A type of black hair-like algae, pronounced "fat choy" in Cantonese, is also featured in many dishes since its name sounds similar to "prosperity". Hakka will serve "kiu nyuk". Because the things sound alike, the belief is that having one will lead to the other, like the old child's aphorism "step on a crack, break your mother's back".
CHINESE NEW YEAR TRIVIA
How long does the Chinese New Year celebration last?
The New Year season lasts fifteen days. The first week is the most important and most often celebrated with visits to friends and family as well as greetings of good luck. The celebrations end on the important and colourful Lantern Festival on the evening of the 15th day of the month. Even though, Chinese believe the third day of the Chinese New Year, is not appropriate to visit family and friends, and called the day "chec hao", meaning easy to get into arguments.
The date of the Chinese New Year is determined by the Chinese calendar, a lunisolar calendar. The same calendar is used in countries that have adopted the Confucian and Buddhism tradition and in many cultures influenced by the Chinese, notably the Koreans, the Tibetans, the Vietnamese and the pagan Bulgars. Chinese New Year starts on the first day of the new year, containing a new moon (some sources even include New Year's Eve) and ends on the Lantern Festival fourteen days later. This occurs around the time of the full moon as each lunation is about 29.53 days in duration. In the Gregorian calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year, on a date between January 21 and February 21. These dates will slowly drift over tens of thousands of years because the Gregorian calendar is a rule-based calendar that only approximates the true astronomical calculations used by the Chinese calendar.
Source: The English Wikipedia
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