介绍:
Hello everyone, welcome to the special edition of traditional customs of Chinese New Year, this is from the team only for the top one of the new oriental Beijing. I’m Sam the host of today’s program. Today I'll be taking you through some of the most important traditions of Chinese New Year.
But first, when we young generation come back home to celebrate New Year’s holidays with our own relatives, I surely understand the exact unhappy feeling we had and are having becuase we’ve been asked by our own unique drama queen aunties “How much money do you make now?” "Why are you still not married?” "When are you going to buy a house in Beijing?” there are few 80s could finally win this battle against our drama queen aunties who like releasing their tri”fecta at this time of year. Even worse, although you may have got every good result to each question, you can never avoid one more new final test, when will you have the second child? Oh my godsh, come on, are you still alright?
Ok, the first thing comes the first, one of the most important custom I want to say is about firecrackers, legend has been told that there is an ancient Chinese beast called “Nian” who rises in the sea to ravage village and hurt people on the last day of the year, the only way to scare the beast away was to set off firecrackers because of the loud noise, meanwhile, lighting firecrackers also means to drive away evil spirits and bad luck.
What’s more, the Spring Festival for every Chinese people is a big time for family reunion to have a very very big New Year’s Eve dinner. In the south of China, people customarily eat “niangao” because it is as a homophone of “going higher during the whole year”, in the north, the tradition dish is dumplings or “jiaozi”
Since 1983, we’ve been having a custom to watch Spring Festival Eve performance or Spring Festival Gala until the first bell of New Year; people believe that the ring of the first bell can definitely bring the good luck to them. Cities and towns are lit up with the glitter from firecrackers and the sound can be deafening when the clock strikes 12. Families will stay up for this joyful moment.
The last custom I bet everyone could tell is gift money or lucky money. When I was a child I really like celebrating the Chinese New Year cause I could get as much gift money the elder family members can gave to me as possible. But the happy moment wouldn’t last even one more minute; my mum happily came to me and eagerly told me she is the best one to keep the money for me. What a such un”reconciled feeling I had! After all it is really the happiest custom for children.
Okay now Sam, wants to ask a good question for my audiences; do you know the meaning and its background of the first following lunar ten days? I doubt that it is few people know. Well, I will tell you some of the interesting ones,
the first lunar day, for instance it’s called Rooster day, in Chinese we say “jiri” which has the similar sound “jiri”, meaning lucky day;
on the fifth day, it’s called Ox day, “niuri” or “powu” in Chinese way “yincaishen”, well on the seventh day, it is named by Human day, meaning “renri”, wow, it’s really quite strange, on this day people should get together and fire firecrackers and must eat noodles. Finally the last tenth day, it is the birthday of stone, we can’t touch any stone-made things; it will bring bad luck if we do. I bet it is the first time for everyone to hear about these.
Okay, this is for today’s program—traditional customs of Chinese New Year, thanks so much for listening; I do hope you could enjoy it. Sam, here wants to say wherever you are, let me wish you the very best health and happiness for the New Year, the Year of the Monkey, “gonghey fauchoy” from Sam, see you next time!
