Holidays and Observances:
Jan. 28-Feb. 3: Dancing Festival, the largest sacrificial ceremony observed by the Jingpo ethnic group of Yunnan Province. For four or five days following the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, people wear festive clothing and dance to the accompaniment of drums and gongs, firing guns in celebration.
2: World Wetland Day.
7: Preliminary Eve (24th of the 12th lunar month). According to legend, the kitchen god delivers reports on families to the Jade Emperor of Heaven. To induce the kitchen god to speak favorably, people traditionally offer sacrifices of candy or sweet, sticky cake to him.
13: Lunar New Year's Eve, the last day of each lunar year. Includes such traditional activities as pasting New Year's couplets on doorframes and New Year's pictures on doors or walls, offering sacrifices to ancestors, having a family reunion dinner, staying up to see the old year out and usher in the new, and giving children gifts of money.
14: Spring Festival (Chinese New Year's Day), 1st of the first lunar month, three days off.
14: Valentine's Day.
28: Lantern Festival, 15th of the 1st lunar month, marking the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations with a display of colorful lanterns and eating of yuanxiao, glutinous rice dumplings. |
