Global Chinese Culture
The traditions of Chinese Spring Festival are very much like Chinese food: you have not just one or two main courses, but a wide array of dishes served on the same table. And you have to finish all of them to be a good guest.
Each year Beijing’s temples put on a show designed to provide traditional delights to visitors, many using the temple fairs to buy gifts or crafts for the new year celebrations, or to take a break from the non-stop eating and family events that characterize much of the holiday.
One of China’s spring Festival traditions is putting up couplets of verse on doors and gates of residential houses, restaurants and businesses. Chunlian(春联, also known as duilian 对联),or spring couplets, are composed of two lines of verse written on vertical strips of paper put up on each side of a door, plus a horizontal one on top of the door.
Traveling to one of the coldest places in China during the winter may seem like a bad idea for a holiday. But a visit to Harbin’s Snow and Ice Festival is a unique experience that brightens up an otherwise freezing season.
Although snow at Spring Festival is not necessarily the ideal that a white Christmas is, it is very much a part of life in northern China in January and February, and therefore is a common part of the celebration of the end of the lunar winter.
Chinese New Year 2010 begins from today! People will prepare sticky sweets to bribe Zaoshen who will report their family conducts to the Jade Emperor in the Heavenly Palace. And dumplings will come to the table to herald in a series of festive preparations: haircuts, house-cleaning, shopping, papercuts, doorgods, couplets, firecrackers, etc. It’s also the best time to have a rushed wedding before end of the lunar year without being bound by too many dos and don’ts!
Sydney’s Chinese New Year festivities have two great advantages: one is the city’s growing and vibrant Chinese community; the other is that unlike most of the world, including China, Chinese New Year in Australia is actually a warm-weather holiday.
Chinese New Year 2010 in London Dates: February 2010 Venue: Various venues The Chinese New Year in Central London is the biggest celebration of Spring Festival outside Asia. Source from: http://www.visitlondon.com/events/detail/4733685 Chinese New Year 2010, the Year of the Tiger, falls on 14 February. The main London Chinatown Chinese Association celebration takes place on 21 [...]
The popularity of Chinese language classes is at an all-time high, as more and more people sign up to xuexi putonghua (study Mandarin). However, China’s 400 million Internet users have some phrases that new students won’t find in any dictionary or language textbook. Just as the development and increasing use of the Internet put words [...]
What does a pipa (琵琶) sound like? It sounds like it’s spelled. The pipa is one of the world’s few major instruments that derives its name from the sound it makes. Its four strings are plucked with picks worn on the performer’s fingertips. Depending on which direction the string is plucked, it produces either a [...]