Value

& Significance

Chinese traditional festivals which belong to a tradtional customary culture rooted in the farming culture in ancient China. All the festivals contain their unique cultural connotations, reflect the strong cohesion and vitality of the culture in the long historical development. They are sometimes even related to the cultural spirit and national spirit,and should play important roles in the development of society.

中国传统节日作为一种行为层面的传统文化，根植于中国 古代农耕文化，在长期的流传过程中形成了自身独特的文化 内涵，体现了强大的文化凝聚力与生命力，有时甚至于文化 精神，民族精神相联系，在社会发展过程中具有非常重要的 作用。

Spring Festival

The Spring Festival is known as the most important Festival in China. During the holiday, people go back to hometown from everywhere no matter how far the distance is. They prepare various delicious food and presents for the Spring Festival Eve. Chinese will have a happy family union in the Spring Festival Eve, they believe that’s the end day of last year and they will stay up for good luck until the first day of next year.

In China, the most traditional and popular Spring Festival food is dumpling, which looks like the moon with vegetables and meat mixed in it. The Chinese name of dumpling is “JIAO ZI”, ”JIAO” means ”cross”, ”ZI” is Chinese traditional time represents “24:00”, so the Chinese word “JIAO ZI” means “cross 24:00”, just the dividing point of last year and next year. So when it comes to 24:00, every family begins eating dumplings.

Now putting up red paper on the door and setting firecracker becomes Spring Festival customs and people believe doing these will bring their family safety.

Spring Festival is also the happiest time for children, because they can get red envelope containing money as a gift from the elder. During the Spring Festival, any unfortunate word cannot be heard because it will make people upset and unhappy. People also make use of this holiday to visit their relatives and bring them some presents and well-wishing.

The Lantern Festival

(元宵节)

The Lantern Festival is January 15 on the lunar calendar. The lunar January is the first month of a year and 15th is the first day of full moon. During Lantern Festival, people go along the street to watch lanterns and children light their own small lanterns for some fun. The biggest and most beautiful lantern is the dragon lantern, which looks like a flying dragon, held by several young guys. One with a ball in hand leads the dragon to move.

Some lanterns have puzzles (灯谜)on them, called lantern puzzle, the one who gets the answer could receive small presents and be happy for his intelligence.The traditional food for Lantern Festival is rice glue ball. Rice glue ball is a flavor ball with filling

in it, for example, peanut filling, sesame filling and jam filling…,the rice glue ball’s shape is just like the full moon appears in the sky. This kind of dessert is especially welcomed by children.

Tomb-

sweeping Day(清明节)

Tomb–sweep

Day is an ancient festival in spring, also called Qing Ming Festival. In ancient China, the emperor worshipped heaven and earth in order to bless for harvest. People worshipped their ancestors with sacrifice and showed their missing for ancestors.

Qing MingDu Mu( Tang Dynasty )

Qing Ming usually comes with rainy days

清明时节雨纷纷， 路上行人欲断魂， 借问酒家何处有， 牧童遥指杏花村.He points to the village covered by apricot blossoms Passengers on the way are full of soreness

I ask a Buffalo boy for tavern to release my sadness

Mid-Autumn Day

(中秋节)

Mid-autumn Day is August 15th on lunar calendar. According to history records, Chinese emperor has tradition that worship the Sun in spring and worship the Moon in autumn. As august 15th is exactly the middle of autumn, so it is called Mid-Autumn Day. The traditional food of Mid-Autumn Day is Moon cake, a round baked cake with fillings in it. The round shape of moon cake represents family reunion. In the night of Mid-Autumn Day, every family has moon cake and watches the moon.

One most famous story is Chang’e flying to the moon. Thousands of years ago, there were 9 suns in the sky, many people felt too hot to live. A young man called Yi was brave enough and shot 8 suns to the ground and saved people. One day Yi got a potion of elixir(万寿药 from Queen Mother and gave his wife Chang’e to keep. A man named Peng Meng knew about the elixir and wanted to get it from Chang’e. One day when Yi was out for hunting, Peng Meng went to rob the elixir. In order to protect the elixir, Chang’e swallowed all of the elixir then flied to the moon.