Chinese New Year Tour, to Enjoy Authentic Chinese Culture

The Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is the most important celebration of the Chinese people. It is a festival with dense cultural atmosphere. It is the best time to experience the Chinese customs deeply.

Special Activities During the Spring Festival

CCTV Spring Festival Gala Evening

CCTV presented the Spring Festival Gala Evening as a live show for the first time in 1983,which created a great sensation immediately. It has been held for 27 years and has already become a miniature of the mass art and the mainstream culture.Chinese New Year's Eve is the most important night in the Chinese calendar, when family members come together to bid farewell to the old, and welcome in the New Year.

All the performances in the program are carefully selected from all walks of life, reflecting the essence of Chinese art and culture. As the most watched television activity, it is the most powerful medium for spreading and inheriting culture and tradition.

The Sound of Firecrackers

As for the most popular Spring Festival activities, firecrackers are indispensable. Generally speaking, Chinese people will stay up until midnight, set off firecrackers to celebrate the arrival of the New Year and say goodbye to the old one. As an indispensable part of Chinese folk culture, it has a history of more than 2,000 years. However, big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have banned individuals from setting off firecrackers because of safety and environmental concerns.

New Year's Eve Dinner

The New Year's eve dinner is a very important meal for all Chinese people. Everyone does their best to get home to their families, no matter where they are. Generally speaking, all dishes are homemade. The New Year's eve dinner is usually the best meal of the year. It would be the happiest time for family members get together to prepare and eat the dinner.

Dinner was better than ever, including chicken, fish, pork, shrimp, vegetables and so on. In northern China, dumplings are an essential food, while in southern China, it is Niangao. Since dumplings are shaped like ancient Chinese coin, eating them is a symbol of acquiring wealth. coins are usually wrapped in a dumpling. Those who eat the money are said to have good luck in the coming year. And the pronunciation of Niangao is a homophone for a word that means "a more prosperous year".

The Temple Fair During Chinese New Year

The temple fair is a social event in China. It originated in ancient times and was used to offer sacrifices to gods. Later, it gradually evolved into a market for people to exchange products and a place for cultural performances. Temple fairs play a unique role in the lives of Chinese people. Temple fairs are also a kind of traditional folk activities widely spread among the Chinese people. Folk custom is a life culture created, enjoyed and inherited by the masses in a country. Temple fair is an organic part of this life culture. Its generation, existence and evolution are closely related to people's lives.Temple fairs is a traditional custom in Beijing during the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival.

Spring Festival Couplets

During the Spring Festival period every year, almost all families handpick a pair of Spring Festival couplets to paste on their doors, adding some joyous atmosphere to the festival. The couplets are generally written on red paper and the sentences contain auspicious meanings. A couplet is composed of two lines of poetry that come next to each other, especially two lines that rhyme with each other and are of the same length. In addition, the lines should be posted vertically, with the first one on the right and the second one on the left.