Tuesday (1 February) marks the Lunar New Year celebration. We recently caught up with Henry, President of CSSA: Chinese Students and Scholars Association, to find out more about Lunar New Year Celebrations.
1. When is Chinese New Year?
The Chinese new year in 2022 is 1 February as the date of Chinese new year is different every year according to the traditional Chinese calendar.
2. How is Chinese New Year traditionally celebrated?
During the Spring Festival, various Chinese New Year activities are held all over the country. The celebration activities during the Spring Festival are extremely rich and varied, including lion dance, dragon dance, wandering gods, temple fairs, flower street shopping, lantern viewing, gongs and drums, vernier flags, fireworks burning, blessings, spring festivals, as well as walking on stilts, running dry boats, and twisting Yangko. etc. During the Spring Festival, group dinners and New Year’s greetings can be found everywhere, but due to the different customs, the subtleties have their own characteristics.
3. What food is traditionally eaten around the New Year celebrations?
The most common Chinese New Year foods include dumplings, fish, spring rolls, and niangao. But different regions will eat different food in China. Such as the north will have Longevity noodles as the noodle is very long which represents the long life blessing. And at the south part of China will eat sweet rice ball aka tangyuan which represents ‘get together’.
4. How will the CSSA celebrate Chinese New Year this year?
The CSSA originally planned to hold a Chinese New Year party at the SU hall, where our CSSA members would perform some short comedy plays and songs. However, due to the epidemic, we plan to record these programs and publish them on the Spring Festival or change them to online. But we may also prepare some traditional food for sale that night.
5. Is Chinese New Year the biggest celebration in the Chinese calendar?
Although there are many different celebrations such as the mid autumn festival in the chinese calendar, the Chinese new year is definitely the biggest celebration.