Chinese Festivals
In China, there are many different types of festivals to
celebrate and honour their ancestors and Chinese culture. These range from
Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Dragon Festival, Mid-Autumn Day and
Tomb-Sweeping Day. Each of these festivals has their own significance, feature
and celebration forms. In Spring Festival, which starts from the 1st
day to 15th day of the first month in the lunar calendar. It is
quite similar as Christmas for western people. When it is time to celebrate,
people will hang out as couplets, hang red lanterns on the door, play with
firecrackers delightfully, and expressing with a holiday mood. Another
important part of Spring Festival is family reunion since it is a gathering of
people who worked hard from overseas or cities to come back to enjoy the family
reunion dinner. As well the young ones usually express gratitude to their
grandparents health and happiness and getting lucky money from the elder after
saying “Happy New Year” to them.
Mid-Autumn Day is celebrated on the August15th in lunar calendar every year. On the Mid-Autumn Day, family members usually eat the moon cakes while sitting together to gaze upon the bright full moon (symbolises reunion) outside and pray for the family members health and happiness.
Lantern Festival is celebrated on 15th of the first month on the lunar calendar every year. It marks the end of the Spring Festival. On the Lantern Festival people watch lanterns of different shapes of lantern and accompanied by fireworks in the dark sky with a delightful atmosphere. Guessing riddles is another important activities where in each person has to guess the answer correctly in order to win a small gift from the organisers. There are two different types of folk dances, which are lion dance and walking on stilts. In lion dance, the performers dance coordinated and rhythmic steps with loud gongs and drums. Another folk dance performed is where the performers walk on stilts, while dressing up as animals. A special ball-shaped sweet dumpling is eaten on Lantern Festival called Yuan Xiao in Chinese, which is made of glutinous rice flour with various kinds of fillings.
Other important Chinese festivals that are celebrated are Dragon Boat Festival on May 5th, where it is to honour an ancient poet Qu Yuan and Tomb-Sweeping Day on either 4th, 5th, and 6th of April to honour their ancestors and mourn for the deaths by cleaning the grave stones and offering food and money.
Mid-Autumn Day is celebrated on the August15th in lunar calendar every year. On the Mid-Autumn Day, family members usually eat the moon cakes while sitting together to gaze upon the bright full moon (symbolises reunion) outside and pray for the family members health and happiness.
Lantern Festival is celebrated on 15th of the first month on the lunar calendar every year. It marks the end of the Spring Festival. On the Lantern Festival people watch lanterns of different shapes of lantern and accompanied by fireworks in the dark sky with a delightful atmosphere. Guessing riddles is another important activities where in each person has to guess the answer correctly in order to win a small gift from the organisers. There are two different types of folk dances, which are lion dance and walking on stilts. In lion dance, the performers dance coordinated and rhythmic steps with loud gongs and drums. Another folk dance performed is where the performers walk on stilts, while dressing up as animals. A special ball-shaped sweet dumpling is eaten on Lantern Festival called Yuan Xiao in Chinese, which is made of glutinous rice flour with various kinds of fillings.
Other important Chinese festivals that are celebrated are Dragon Boat Festival on May 5th, where it is to honour an ancient poet Qu Yuan and Tomb-Sweeping Day on either 4th, 5th, and 6th of April to honour their ancestors and mourn for the deaths by cleaning the grave stones and offering food and money.
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