春节习俗英文简介Customs of the Spring Festival
The Spring Festival is a traditional Chinese festival and also the most important one of the whole year. Through the evolvement of thousands of years， a series of customs are spreading far and wide.
守岁 Staying Up Late on New Year‘s Eve
The tradition of staying up late to see New Year in originated from an interesting folk tale. In ancient China there lived a monster named Year， who was very ferocious. Year always went out from its burrow on New Year’s Eve to devour people. Therefore， on every New Year’s Eve， every household would have supper together. After dinner， no one dared go to sleep and all the family members would sit together， chatting and emboldening each other. Gradually the habit of staying up late on New Year’s Eve is formed. Thus in China， "celebrating the Spring Festival” is also called "passing over the year (guo nian)”。 However， now there are less and less people in cities who will stay up late to see New Year in.
贴窗花和“福”字 Pasting Paper-cuts and "Up-sided Fu”
Paper-cuts， usually with auspicious patterns， give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival and express the good wishes of Chinese people looking forward to a good life. In addition to pasting paper-cuts on windows， it is common for Chinese to paste the character "fu(福)”， big and small， on walls， doors and doorposts around the houses. "Fu(福)” shows people’s yearning toward a good life. Some people even invert the character "fu(福)” to signify that blessing has arrived because "inverted” is a homonym for "arrive” in Chinese. Now many kinds of paper-cuts and "fu(福)” can be seen in the market before the Festival.
贴年画 Pasting New Year Prints
The custom of pasting New Year Prints originated from the tradition of placing Door Gods on the external doors of houses. With the creation of board carvings， New Year paintings cover a wide range of subjects. The most famous ones are Door Gods， Surplus Year after Year， Three Gods of Blessing， Salary and Longevity， An Abundant Harvest of Crops， Thriving Domestic Animals and Celebrating Spring. Four producing areas of New Year Print are Tɑohuɑwu of Suzhou， Yɑngliuqing of Tianjin， Wuqiɑng of Hebei and Weifang of Shangdong. Now the tradition of pasting New Year paintings is still kept in rural China， while it is seldom followed in cities.
吃饺子 Having Jiaozi
On New Year’s Eve， the whole family will sit together to make jiaozi and celebrate the Spring Festival. The shape of jiaozi is like gold ingot from ancient China. So people eat them and wish for money and treasure. The tradition of having jiaozi is very important during the Spring Festival. You cannot have a complete Spring Festival without having jiaozi. (See page 82 for more information about "jiaozi”)
春节歇后语
三十晚上――刀砧不得闲
正月十五才拜年--晚了半月
哑巴拜年------多嗑头少说话
熊瞎子拜年--不敢受这个礼
三十晚上失了牛--明年的事
三十晚没月亮--年年如此
十五个瘸子拜年--七高八低
二十九过年--小劲(进)