Chinese New Year

• 1. Introduction

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  Chinese New Year, also called the Spring Festival, sets off a travel season known as the world's largest annual migration. Railways, bus lines and airlines begin special arrangements fifteen days before New Year's Day. The whole period, called chunyun, lasts 40 days. In that stretch, people in China make more interurban trips than the total population of China. Many of them are migrant workers heading home for a reunion dinner on New Year's Eve.

  Why does one meal pull so many people across a country? Why do families scrub their houses before the holiday, then put the broom away once it starts? Why is a fish served at the feast but never finished? Why did a government once forbid the celebration outright? And why does even the English name of the holiday start arguments?

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• 2. Names and Calendar

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  In 1914, Yuan Shikai, the interim president of the Republic of China, proposed the name Spring Festival. The name points to lichun, the first of the twenty-four solar terms, which marks the start of spring in the lunisolar calendar. The government of the People's Republic of China kept the name for official use. The government of the Republic of China in Taiwan later adopted the name Traditional Chinese New Year instead.

  Politics touched the date itself as well. In 1928, the ruling Kuomintang party decreed that Chinese New Year would fall on the 1st of January of the Gregorian calendar. Overwhelming opposition forced the plan to be abandoned.

  English speakers have their own naming quarrel. In many countries outside China, Lunar New Year is widely used and seen as more inclusive, even though the traditional calendar is lunisolar rather than purely lunar. Some Chinese public opinion reads that wording as an act of De-Sinicization. In 2025, the Chinese tea brand CHAGEE translated Spring Festival as Lunar New Year and drew controversy. On the 24th of January 2025, the company urgently changed its copy and apologized.

  The winter solstice anchors the calendar. The lunisolar month that contains the solstice counts as the eleventh month. So the new year usually falls on the second new moon after the solstice, and rarely the third when an intercalary month intervenes. In more than 96 percent of years, that moon is also the one closest to lichun. On the Gregorian calendar, it always lands between the 21st of January and the 20th of February.

  Each year carries an animal. The year 2026 begins on Tuesday the 17th of February, the year of the Horse. In 2027, Saturday the 6th of February opens the year of the Goat. In 2028, the Monkey year starts on Wednesday the 26th of January. By 2034, the Tiger year arrives on Sunday the 19th of February, a single day short of the latest possible date.

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• 3. The Beast Called Nian

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  Under the sea or deep in the mountains, according to legend, lived a beast called the Nian. It looked like a lion with horns. Once a year, in the middle of the night, it came to eat villagers, especially children.

  One year, the villagers decided to hide. Before they left, an old man appeared and said he would stay the night and take revenge on the Nian. He put up red papers and set off firecrackers. When the villagers crept back the next day, nothing in the town had been destroyed. They decided the old man must have been a deity who had come to save them.

  That morning taught them what the Nian feared, which was the colour red and loud noises. As each New Year approached, the habit grew. Villagers wore red clothing and hung red lanterns and spring scrolls on windows and doors. They used firecrackers and drums to frighten the beast away. The Nian never came to the village again. The legend adds that Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk, eventually captured it.

  The written record tells a quieter story, and it begins with a farmer's poem about an autumn harvest.

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• 4. Centuries of Customs

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  A poem in the Classic of Poetry, composed during the Western Zhou period (1046 BC-771 BC), was written by an anonymous farmer. It describes a celebration in the tenth month of the ancient solar calendar, which fell in autumn. People cleaned millet stacks, offered mijiu rice wine to guests, and slaughtered lambs. They visited their master's home, toasted him, and wished him long life together. This harvest gathering is believed to be one of the prototypes of Chinese New Year.

  The records of the first true New Year celebrations trace back to the Warring States period (475-221 BC). The Lüshi Chunqiu notes that the state of Qin carried out an exorcism ritual called Big Nuo on the last day of the year, to expel illness. After Qin unified China and founded the Qin dynasty, the ritual spread. It evolved into the habit of cleaning the house thoroughly in the days before the new year.

  The first mention of celebrating the start of a new year itself comes from the Han dynasty (202 BC-220 AD). Cui Shi, an agronomist of the Eastern Han, wrote in the Simin Yueling about the first day of the first month. He described bringing his wife and children to worship ancestors and to remember his father. He pictured children and grandchildren serving pepper wine to their parents and wishing them health. His verdict was "It's a thriving view." The Book of the Later Han also records a county officer visiting his prefect's house with a government secretary, toasting him and praising his merit.

  Zhou Chu, a general of the Western Jin, described the Jin dynasty (266-420) customs in his Fengtu Ji. People exchanged gifts at year's end, a practice named Kuisui, meaning time for gifts. They invited others to drink and eat, which was Biesui, meaning sending off the year. On New Year's Eve they stayed awake until sunrise, a vigil called Shousui, meaning guard the year. His text also used the word chuxi for New Year's Eve, and that word is still used today.

  A book of the Northern and Southern dynasties, the Jingchu Suishiji, describes people firing bamboo in the early morning of New Year's Day. The bamboo cracked and exploded with a loud noise, which was thought to scare away evil spirits. Lai Gu, a poet and chancellor of the Tang dynasty, recalled the custom in his poem Early Spring. He wrote of a family gathered around the dust of exploded bamboo poles.

  The Tang dynasty also produced the bai nian tie, the New Year's greeting card. One account credits Emperor Taizong of Tang, who wrote "whole nation celebrates together" on gold leaves and sent them to his ministers. Word spread, and ordinary people later copied the gesture on Xuan paper. Another theory traces the cards to the men zhuang, a Han dynasty name tag. Pupils carried it to a teacher's home to give thanks after good imperial examination marks, and it became a symbol of luck.

  Meng Chang, an emperor of the Later Shu (935-965 AD), wrote one early set of spring couplets. The Song official Zhang Tangying recorded in his Shu Tao Wu that the emperor ordered the scholar Xin Yinxun to write couplets on peach wood. They were hung on the emperor's bedroom door on New Year's Eve. By the Song dynasty, hanging couplets on the home's entrance before the new year was believed to be widespread. The poet Wang Anshi recorded the custom in his poem Yuan Ri.

  Gunpowder, invented in the Tang dynasty and widely used under the Song, transformed the bamboo tradition. People filled bamboo poles with gunpowder to make louder explosions. Later, under the Song, they wrapped gunpowder in paper cylinders that imitated bamboo. The name bao zhu, meaning exploding bamboo, stayed the same, so old and new practices shared one word. People also linked firecrackers on hemp rope to create the bian pao, or gunpowder whip.

  The Song dynasty is also when giving money to children began, under the name sui nian qian, meaning money based on age. In the Wulin jiushi, the emperor's concubines prepared a hundred and twenty coins for princes and princesses to wish them longevity. Under the Yuan dynasty, people gave relatives nian gao, or year cakes. Dumplings were established as a New Year dish under the Ming dynasty at the latest. The Youzhongzhi describes people rising at 5 in the morning, burning incense and lighting firecrackers. They drank pepper and thuja wine and ate dumplings, sometimes with a silver coin hidden inside to bring its finder a year of fortune. In the Qing dynasty, the Qing Jia Lu recorded elders giving children coins threaded on a red string. That money was called ya sui qian, a name Chinese people still use.

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• 5. Banned and Restored

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  On the 11th of August 1966, a group of Red Guards published an essay titled "Let Us Celebrate a 'Proletarian Cultural Revolution Holiday.'" It argued that festivals such as the Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Dragon Boat Festival had a "very strong feudal flavour, a widespread baneful influence, and a bad impact." The essay wanted traditional festivals replaced by holidays with explicit political meaning.

  On the 30th of January 1967, the Shanghai Workers' Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters presented a proposal. Its title called on people to break old customs, take no holiday during the Spring Festival, and launch a mass struggle for power. The rebels claimed that holidays would encourage counterrevolutionaries and sabotage both production and the Cultural Revolution. Another Shanghai group, in an article called "Revolutionize the Spring Festival," called the festival "spiritual shackles" placed on working people by exploiting classes.

  In 1967, official celebrations were banned in China. The State Council told the public to "change customs" and hold a "revolutionized and fighting Spring Festival." People's Daily reported that the State Council had suspended workers' leave for that year's festival, in line with Mao Zedong's policy of "grasping revolution and promoting production." Employees who wished to visit relatives were told their leave would be made up later.

  In early 1969, People's Daily published a report from Dingxiang County in Shanxi province. Sent-down youths there proposed a "meaningful" and "revolutionary" Spring Festival alongside poor and lower-middle peasants. They wrote that "no river or sea was as deep as class friendship." Their five-point plan included staying in the countryside, publicizing Mao Zedong's latest instructions, joining political struggle, promoting agricultural production, and carrying out propaganda centered on politics and frugality.

  The push for a thrifty festival persisted in 1971. A People's Daily article that year warned against banquets, extravagant spending, excessive eating and drinking, and gift giving. It said these customs embodied the Four Olds and needed to be broken down so the Four News could be established. A member of the Liji Commune, who had planned a banquet, quickly reconsidered after a Mao Zedong Thought study class.

  Tradition survived in small acts. In 1984, Xi Jinping told journalists about the New Year of 1968, when he was fifteen and under investigation. His little brother sent him a plate of traditional dumplings, and the Special Case Committee quickly confiscated it. The committee criticized the dumplings as reflecting the lifestyle and people of the past. The historian Fang Xiao describes workers at a reservoir construction site in Hubei Province who were not permitted to go home. They slipped away at night anyway, carrying food distributed by the local government.

  By the late 1970s, official attitudes had begun to shift. The festival was presented as a needed rest for peasants who worked continuously all year. Peasants asked why they had no days off, and said that without rest they would lack the strength to work. By 1980, the Spring Festival was restored as a public holiday. In 2024, UNESCO added Chinese New Year to its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The festival once labelled a target of revolution now sits on that list.

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• 6. Fifteen Days

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  The countdown begins on the eighth day of the lunisolar month before the new year, with the Laba Festival. Families eat Laba porridge in memory of an ancient festival called La, held shortly after the winter solstice. Women traditionally prepared it at first light, and the first bowl went to the family's ancestors and household deities. Garlic pickled in vinegar turns green on this day. For Buddhists, it is also Bodhi Day.

  On Little New Year, a week before the festival, Taoist and Buddhist households clean their altars and statues. They burn the old decorations and send the gods back to heaven. A paper effigy of the Kitchen God, who records the family's doings, may be burned so he can report to the Jade Emperor. Families offer candy to bribe the deities into saying good things.

  A Cantonese saying urges people to wash away the dirt on nin ya baat, the 28th day of the twelfth month. The cleaning sweeps out the previous year's bad luck. Brooms and dust pans are put away on the first day so the new luck cannot be swept out. Haircuts must be finished early, because the word for hair, fa, sounds like the word for prosperity. Businesses are expected to pay all outstanding debts before New Year's Eve, including debts of gratitude.

  On New Year's Eve, household doors are sealed and not reopened until dawn, in a ritual called opening the door of fortune. Some families visit temples hours before midnight to light the first incense of the year. The all-night vigil of shousui is still practised and believed to add to the longevity of parents.

  At midnight on the first day, families welcome the deities of heaven and Earth. They light fireworks, burn bamboo sticks and firecrackers, and perform a lion dance to ward off evil spirits. Lighting fires and using knives are taboo, so all food is cooked beforehand. Using the broom, swearing, and breaking dinnerware without appeasing the deities are also forbidden. Kowloon, Beijing and Shanghai have all banned fireworks in certain precincts over fire hazards. Governments in Hong Kong and Singapore sponsor large displays as a substitute.

  The second day is called a year's beginning, and married daughters visit their birth parents, relatives and close friends. Traditionally they could not visit often. In imperial China, beggars carried a picture of the God of Wealth from house to house, shouting that he had come. Householders answered with lucky money. Hong Kong worshippers believe this day is the birthday of Che Kung. A government representative asks him about the city's fortune through kau cim.

  The third day is known as red mouth, or Chikou. It is considered unlucky to have guests or to go visiting. Hakka villagers in rural Hong Kong in the 1960s called it the Day of the Poor Devil and believed everyone should stay home.

  The fifth day is the birthday of the God of Wealth, also known as Guan Yu. People in China shoot off firecrackers to get his attention and secure his favour. On the sixth day, called Horse's Day, people throw out the garbage accumulated during the festival to drive away the Ghost of Poverty. The seventh day is Renri, the common person's birthday, when everyone grows one year older. In Malaysia and Singapore, it is the day for yusheng, a tossed raw fish salad. By the eighth day, people typically return to work, and store owners host a lunch or dinner for their employees.

  The ninth day is the birthday of the Jade Emperor, and it matters especially to the Hokkien. Sugarcane is a prominent offering. Legend holds that the Hokkien escaped a massacre by Japanese pirates by hiding in a sugarcane plantation. In Hokkien, the word for sugarcane is a near homonym of thank you.

  The fifteenth day is the Lantern Festival, also called Yuanxiao and Chap Goh Meh. Families eat tangyuan, sweet glutinous rice balls in soup, and may walk the streets with lanterns that carry riddles. In China and Malaysia, the day is also a hunt for romance. Single women write their phone numbers on mandarin oranges and throw them into a river or lake. Single men collect and eat them, and a sweet taste promises good fortune in love while a sour taste promises less.

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• 7. Wordplay and Luck

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  The reunion dinner takes place in or near the home of the family's most senior member. Pork, chicken and fish are traditional, and many tables feature a communal hot pot, which signifies the family coming together. Eight dishes are served because of the good fortune tied to that number. If the family suffered a death the previous year, seven dishes are served instead.

  Fish appears on the table but is not finished, and the remainder is stored overnight. The Chinese phrase "may there be surpluses every year" sounds the same as "let there be fish every year." Wordplay drives much of the menu. In northern China, families make jiaozi dumplings, whose shape resembles a sycee, the old gold and silver ingot. In the south, they make niangao, a glutinous rice cake. The word nian means year, and gao sounds like both cake and higher, so the cake carries wishes for a better year.

  Fillings add more meaning. Dates prophesy a flourishing year, candy predicts sweet days, and niangao foretells a rich life. Long, thin wheat noodles represent a long life. The word for orange, chéng, sounds like the word for success. The character for tangerine, jú, contains the character for luck. Pomelo, yòu, sounds like the word for have, and without its tone it sounds exactly like the word for again.

  A red diamond-shaped fu character hangs on many entrances, often upside down. The Chinese word for upside down, dào, is nearly homophonous with the word for arrive, so the sign announces the arrival of luck. Cantonese speakers avoid it. In Cantonese, upside down sounds like the word for pour, which suggests pouring the luck away. Red itself is auspicious. In Mandarin its sound resembles the word for prosperous, and on the Chinese opera stage a red painted face marks a sacred or loyal figure.

  The red envelope has its own legend. A demon named Sui would pat a sleeping child on the head three times on New Year's Eve, causing a fever. Parents wrapped coins in red paper and set them beside the pillow. When Sui approached, the flash of the coins scared him away. The money became known as yasuiqian, the money that suppresses evil spirits. In another telling, the creature frightened children so badly that they were left with intellectual disabilities, and families stayed awake to guard against it.

  Red packets go from married couples and the elderly to unmarried juniors and children. Amounts beginning with an even number are favoured. The number 8 sounds like wealth and 6 sounds like smooth. The number 4 sounds like death, and odd numbers recall the cash given at funerals. The bills should be new. A married person who is asked for a red packet will not refuse, since refusing would mean being out of luck in the new year. Children wish their elders happiness and health before accepting, then keep the envelope under the pillow for seven nights.

  Gifts follow their own rules. Fruit, cakes, biscuits and candies wrapped in red or golden paper are welcome, and oranges are common. Pears are never given, because the word sounds like separate. Clocks and watches suggest time running out, and the word for clock sounds like a funeral ritual. Umbrellas sound like disperse, and scissors or knives suggest cutting a tie. Handkerchiefs sound like goodbye.

  In the mid-2010s, messaging apps such as WeChat moved the red envelope onto phones, usually inside group chats. In 2017, it was estimated that over 100 billion virtual red envelopes would be sent over the holiday.

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• 8. Beyond China

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  As many as 29 of the 55 ethnic minority groups in China celebrate Chinese New Year alongside the Han Chinese. Abroad, the festival is kept wherever significant overseas Chinese or Sinophone populations live. Southeast Asia is the heartland, including Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand. It is also prominent in Australia, Canada, France, Mauritius, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. Sydney, London and San Francisco each claim the largest celebration outside Asia and South America. Australia holds the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

  Governments handle the calendar in different ways. Malaysia and Singapore give the first 2 days of the festival. Hong Kong and Macau give the first 3. China observes the eve and first 3 days, but adjusted weekends stretch this into a full week known as Golden Week. Taiwan legally grants 4 days, though bridge holidays can create weekends of 9 or 10 days. In Thailand, the day is a public holiday only in Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, Satun and Songkhla provinces. Because the festival moves across the week, some countries add a day when it lands on a weekend. In 2013, New Year's Eve fell on Saturday the 9th of February and New Year's Day on Sunday the 10th.

  The festival has relatives across East Asia, often grouped as Lunar New Year. They include the Losar of Tibet, the Tết of Vietnam, the Seollal of Korea and the Ryukyu New Year. Seollal is celebrated in both North Korea and South Korea. Koreans visit family, perform ancestral rites and wear the hanbok. A well-known practice is receiving money from elders after a formal bow, likely adopted from Confucian customs. Japan took a different path. In 1873, five years after the Meiji Restoration, it adopted the Gregorian calendar, and the 1st of January became the official New Year.

  In Taiwan, many people call the festival Guonian, which means past year, rather than using the term Spring Festival. Pineapple cakes and kuihs are favourite delicacies, and temple visits and lantern-lighting ceremonies often matter more than big fireworks. Businesses traditionally reopen on the sixth day with firecrackers. On the morning of the ninth day, households set up a three-layer altar table with offerings of six items, including noodles, fruits, cakes and tangyuan. Paper lanterns decorate the top layer. The household kneels three times and kowtows nine times to wish the Jade Emperor a long life.

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