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Far and away the most important holiday in China is Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year. The timing of the holiday varies from late January to early February.Preparations for the New Year begin the last few days of the last moon, when houses are thoroughly cleaned, debts repaid, hair cut and new clothes purchased. Houses are festooned with paper scrolls bearing auspicious antithetical couplet and in many homes, people burn incense at home and in the temples to pay respects to ancestors and ask the gods for good health in the coming months.At midnight at the turn of the old and new year, people used to let off fire-crackers which serve to drive away the evil spirits and to greet the arrival of the new year. On New Year's Eve, all the members of families come together to feast. Jiaozi, a steamed dumpling as pictured below, is popular in the north, while southerners favor a sticky sweet glutinous rice pudding called nian gao. |
