Celebrating Chinese New Year in China, is mainly about family reunion, and celebrating in ways that are auspicious to bring good fortune to the family in the coming year. Eating auspicious new year meals, setting off fireworks and other activities to bring good luck and good fortune for the year ahead.
There are many fortuitous traditions carried out during this festival period (and also taboos one should not do!) and there are variations from north to south China and also family and personal traditions.
This coming Chinese New Year Spring festival 2023 Year of the Water Rabbit promises to be very special, especially for China, given the difficult circumstances of 2020 and 2021 and 2022.
Best China Info sincerely wish a very happy and safe festive season to everyone and ask you all to remember to stay safe, keep yourself and others safe, and observe proper considerate conduct to help keep yourself and other people safe and trouble-free for the new year to come!
Xin Nian Kuai Le!
Below, we choose a dozen most common traditions, still practiced, to show you how to bring good luck for the new year.
Barrie here, with what I think is quite an important update.. That is.. if you set any store on Feng Shui.. Which I do.. ( Little known fact: I was, from time to time, a Feng Shui consultant in Britain.. England, mostly friends and family, sometimes business associates who asked for advice.. But yes, also, occasionally – ‘paid for my services’.. – subscribe to our YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/BestChinaInfo and follow me on Twitter at: @BeehiveChina
— Barrie V (Barrie VVeiss)
6 things you should do before Chinese New Year Eve
- Clean your house remove broken and ‘dead’ devices
- Tidy the garden, lawns and plants and put away any sharp things like knives and scissors, as they are seen as bad ‘Feng Shui’ during New Years Eve, New Years Day and the festival
- Do showering, washing and all laundry before New Year eve
- Decorate your house in bright red decorations and ambience, Chinese New Year color is red, so wear red and decorate your home with red festive decorations to enhance your New Year luck and good fortune.
- Hang red lanterns
- Paste red spring couplets on the door
5 things you should do on Chinese New Year eve
- Wear red color clothes, even red underwear if this Chinese New Year happens to be the same animal year to which you were born!
- Text ‘QQ’ and WeChat New Year wishes to your friends or send them WeChat red envelopes ‘hongbao'(红包).
- Make reunions with your family
- Eat auspicious ‘lucky’ Chinese dishes, food and recipes. Including Dumplings, Fish -in Chinese: ‘Yu’ (鱼)- means ‘abundance’! Spring roll, etc
Learn more about 12 must-try lucky dishes to eat for Chinese New Year. - Countdown to midnight: Set off fireworks to greet the new year
2 ways to say happy new year in Chinese:
- 新年快乐！pinyin: xīn nián kuài lè , New Year Happy!
- 过年好！ pinyin: guò nián hǎo, Survive ‘Nian’ Well!
10 things you shouldn’t do during Chinese New Year festival and why!
- Don’t do laundry, cleaning and sweeping: as it’s seen as washing and sweeping away good luck and auspicious energy of the new year.
- Don’t do any sewing, stitching, patching or repairing and fixing things: It’s a bad omen for the year, symbolling fixing problems all year round in the year to come.
- Don’t Eat porridge! It’s seen as ‘poor people food’!
- Avoid disputes, quarreling; these are also bad omens for having trouble with people for the whole year to come
- Don’t use negative words, or anything to do with death, sickness, pain, loss, etc, nor swear words
- Avoid anything to do with debts and ‘owing’, claiming a loan or being claimed for any: again, a bad omen for the year would to run into financial issues.
- Avoid using knives or scissors to cut anything, seen as cutting and breaking good luck.
- Don’t kill any creature! Obvious!
- Avoid breaking things, especially things such as mirrors, bowls, cups or glasses
- Don’t rush anybody to get up early, bad omen for having to rush all year and get people work all year round.
Barrie here, with what I think is quite an important update.. That is.. if you set any store on Feng Shui.. Which I do.. ( Little known fact: I was, from time to time, a Feng Shui consultant in Britain.. England, mostly friends and family, sometimes business associates who asked for advice.. But yes, also, occasionally – ‘paid for my services’.. So.. the ‘tip‘, regarding this coming Chinese New Year .. If you want to know the rest – subscribe to our YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/BestChinaInfo and follow me on Twitter at: @BeehiveChina and watch out for Barrie’s Feng Shui Special.. !!!
— Barrie V (Barrie VVeiss)
Strange taboos simply explained!