Chinese New Year Traditions

Chinese New Year Traditions
& Beijing CCTV Hotel Fire

Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is called the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with children carrying lanterns and fireworks. New Year's Eve and the Lantern Festival are the biggest days for Fireworks, but fireworks are shot on all 15 days of the festival.

The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. order to "catch up" with the solar calendar the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven years out of a 19-yearcycle). This is the same as adding an extra day on leap year. This is why, according to the solar calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year.

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated with food, family and Fireworks. New Years Eve rivals Christmas in China. It is the most important holiday.

More food is consumed during the New Year celebrations than any other time of the year. Vast amounts of traditional food is prepared for family and friends. Our family prepares Dumplings for New Year's Eve and Rice balls with bean sweet paste for the 15th day Lantern Festival.

Shooting off firecrackers on New Year's Eve is the Chinese way of sending out the old year and welcoming in the New Year. On the stroke of midnight strings of firecrackers will ring through-out all China and now large cakes have become popular as well.

Unfortunately, this year's celebration ended in a large fire that reportedly was initiated by a non-permitted display conducted by a professional display company. A shell fell onto the roof of the unfinished Manderian Oriental Hotel and started a fire that gutted the multi-million dollar skyscraper. It is unclear how this will effect the legality of fireworks in Beijing, but the fire has spurred a bit of a backlash over fireworks as some resident grew tired of large falsh salutes at all hours of the day for the rather long 15 day Fireworks season.