BEIJING, Jan. 13 -- The Spring Festival is the most important and biggest festival in China just as Christmas to people in the West. It is the first day of the lunar calendar and usually occurs somewhere between January 30 and February 20. Because it heralds the beginning of spring, it is called Spring Festival. This traditionalfestival is also a day of reunion that no matter how far away people are from their home, they would try their best to get back home to have the Reunion Dinner.

Strictly speaking, the Spring Festival starts every year in the early days of the 12th lunar month and will last till the mid 1st lunar month of the next year. Chinese people have several customs during this period, some of which are still followed today, but others have weakened.

On the 8th day of the 12th lunar month, many families make laba porridge(腊八粥), a delicious kind of porridge made with glutinous rice, millet, seeds of Job's tears, jujube berries, lotus seeds, beans, longan and gingko.

The 23rd day of the 12th lunar month is called Preliminary Eve. At this time, people offered sacrifice to the kitchen god in the past. Now, however, most families make delicious food to enjoy themselves. After the Preliminary Eve, people begin preparing for the coming New Year. This is called "Seeing the New Year in".

With the New year drawing nearer, people clean the indoors and outdoors of their homes completely as well as their clothes, bedclothes and all their utensils. Then people begin decorating their clean rooms featuring an atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity. Antithetic couplets and "reversed fu" are two unnecessary characters.

Highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper are paneled on the door which show house owners' wishes for a bright future to good luck for the New Year. Also, pictures of the god of doors and wealth will be posted on front doors to ward off evil spirits and welcome peace and abundance. The Chinese character "fu" is another must. "Fu" means blessing and happiness in Chinese and "Reversed fu" is homophonic with "fu comes", being pronounced as "fudaole." What's more, two big red lanterns can be raised on both sides of the front door. Red paper-cuttings can be seen on window glass and brightly colored New Year paintings with auspicious meanings may be put on the wall.

People attach great importance to Spring Festival Eve. At that time, all family members reunion and have a luxurious and big dinner together. Dishes such as chicken, fish and bean curd cannot be excluded, for in Chinese, their pronunciations, respectively "ji", "yu" and "doufu," mean auspiciousness, abundance and richness. After the dinner, the whole family will sit together, chatting and watching TV. They also have "New Year Call" for relatives and friends. In recent years, the Spring Festival party broadcast on China Central Television Station (CCTV) is essential entertainment for the Chinese both at home and abroad. According to custom, each family will stay up to see the New Year in.

The first three days of the New Year are also important for Chinese people.

Everybody dresses up on New Year Day. They first extend greetings to their parents. Then each child will get money as a New Year gift, wrapped up in red paper. This is called "red pocket".

People in northern China will eat jiaozi, or dumplings, for breakfast, as they think "jiaozi" in sound means "bidding farewell to the old and ushering in the new". Also, the shape of the dumpling is like gold ingot from ancient China. So people eat them and wish for money and treasure. While southern Chinese eat niangao (New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) on this occasion, because as a homophone, niangao means "higher and higher, one year after another."

The first several days after the Spring Festival are also a good time for relatives, friends, and classmates as well as colleagues to exchange greetings, gifts and chat leisurely in China. Moreover, they may go Temple Fair not only to eat traditional Chinese food but also purchase some Chinese local specialty.

Burning fireworks is the most typical custom on the Spring Festival. And there is a legend about it. Traced back to thousands of years ago, there was a ferocious monster called "nian". It lived deep at the bottom of the sea all the year round and climbed up to the shore only on New Year's Eve to devour the cattle and kill people's lives. Villagers were afraid of it so much that they always escaped from their homes on that day and couldn't enjoy New Year. One day a man thought of an idea that he burnt a pile of bamboo, the exploding sound of which scared the monster "nian" so much and drove it away and it dared not come back again. From then on, people began to burn fireworks on the Spring Festival Eve and this turned to be a kind of entertainment.

Besides, a series of other activities such as lion dancing, dragon lantern dancing and lanternfestivals will also be held for days. The lively atmosphere not only fills every household, but permeates to streets and lanes. The Spring Festival then comes to an end when the Lantern Festival is finished.
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