Spring Festival Customs —— Chinese New Year's Eve

Year of the Tiger

Chinese New Year's Eve, which refers to the last day of the last month of the lunar calendar, is the most important day of the Spring Festival for many Chinese. Many people who work in other places come back to their hometown on this day to spend the Spring Festival with their families.

On New Year’s Eve, the whole family gets together to have family reunion dinner, watch Spring Festival gala, play firecrackers, worship ancestors, and ‘stay up late’. The elders give New Year gift money to children. People paste New Year pictures on the walls, red couplets on doors and paper-cuts on windows to express good wishes to New Year.

The dinner on Chinese New Year’s Eve

New Year's Eve is an occasion for Chinese family to gather for annual reunion dinner.Every family will prepare dishes with auspicious meanings, usually chicken, fish, lotus root and other dishes for the New Year, which is also the expectation of a better life in the coming year.

Dumplings are an indispensable dish for families’ reunion dinner throughout the country. Many families would make dumplings at home. There are all kinds of fillings, such as pork, prawnsand beef. One interesting tradition is that people would wrap a coin in dumplings, and whoever eats the dumpling would have good fortune in the coming new year.

Family enjoys reunion dinner

Red couplets

On New Year's Eve, people buy couplets in the shops and post them inside and outside their houses. The themes of the red couplets are health, wealth and good luck.

House Cleaning

In China, thorough cleaning is the most important part to welcome the New Year. On the New Year's Eve, people clean their homes to sweep away ill fortune and prepare to bring in good luck.

The custom in Hefei is that on the morning of this day, the elders of the family bring the younger ones to worship the ancestors. The ancestor worship itself is the custom of inheriting filial piety. For the New Year's Eve dinner, people would eat preserved meat. After the dinner, everyone gathers together to watch the Spring Festival Gala and staying up until the next day. These are the traditions of Hefei, which symbolize that all bad lucks will be swept away and good fortune will approach.