This is the most important and joyous of Chinese traditional holidays, falling on the first on the first day of the Chinese lunar year.

In ancient China people celebrated the festival feasting and offering meat and grain, rewards for the work in the previous year, to family ancestors and spirits for their blessing. The holiday is now celebrated with such activities as putting up New Year door scrolls. Setting off firecrackers and fireworks displays, and eating glutinous- rive cakes.

On the festival?s eve brightly lit colored lanterns are displayed throughout the country, and families get together for a sumptuous meal, called New year dinner or family-reunion dinner. The festival is a three-day national holiday.

Lantern Festival (fifteenth day of the first lunar month)

This festival, also known as Shangyuan Festival, began more than a thousand years ago in the early Tang Dynasty. Since the Song Dynasty people have on this day eaten a special food, called floating balls, made of glutinous rice flour with various fillings and boiled in water. As Yuanxiao is still another name for this festive day, the balls have also come to be called yuan xiao.

Among Chinese traditional holidays the Lantern Festival is a day to ?have fun.? During the week before lanterns are displayed in every house. These lanterns, in beautiful colors and all kinds of shapes, show off the wonderful skill of the craftsmen who make them.

Qingming (Clear and Bright) Festival

The Chinese lunar year consists of twenty-four solar terms evenly spread over the four seasons. Qingming represents an important term for farming, exemplified by the farmer?s rhyme, ?When Qingming is around the corner, busy is the bean and melon planter.? As it is early spring with everything coming back to life, Qingming is the best time of the year for outings. In fact, people have been going to the country ?to see the green? on this day ever since ancient times.

As Qingming comes two days after Han Shi Jie (Cold-Meal Day which is no longer celebrated), it is the day to honour the dead. Cold-Marl Day was proclaimed by Duke Chong?er of Jin of the Spring and Autumn Period as a day to honour the memory of Jie Zhitui, one of his loyal aides, w ho burned himself to death to show his determination to refuse the duke?s offer of a high-ranking official post.

Dragon Boat Festival (the fifth day of the fifth lunar month)

This festival honours the memory of Qu Yuan (a. 340-278B.C.), poet and high-ranking official of the State of Chu of the Warring States Period. Frustrated in his effort to reform the ducal state politically and unable to prevent it from perishing, he drowned himself on the fifth day of the fifth month in the River Miluo when Chu was overrun by the state of Qin. In this day people eat Zongzi (glutinous rice wrapped in reeds) and hold dragon-boat races.

Moon Festival (fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month)

The ancients believed that as the moon was at its brightest and roundest on this day, it was the best day of the year to enjoy the moon?s beauty.

The festival comes at t time when the air is cool and crisp and grain crops and fruits are ripening, so people celebrate it in happy anticipation of being richly rewarded for their work in the fields.

Moon cakes arte eaten on the festival. The custom began over a thousand years ago in the Song Dynasty. The first recipes for making moon cakes were very simple; later more and better varieties of the cakes were developed. Today they vary from place to place all over China in taste and preparation.

Fruition Festival

This is traditional Tibetan festival celebrated in anticipation of good grain harvests. It begins on August 1 and lasts for varying lengths of time. The celebrations consist of horse races, performances of Tibetan opera, songs and dances, and trade fairs.

Water-Sprinkling Festival

This is major festival of the Dai nationality that comes about two weeks after Qingming (Clear and Bright) Festival in early April.

On this day people throw water at each other. The water is meant to remove the dirt from the body and bring happiness for the coming year. The more drenched a person is, the greater success he may expect and therefore the greater happiness.

Torch Festival

The festival is shared by the Yi and Bai nationalities. For three days after the twenty-fourth day of the sixth lunar month, everyone, men and women, young and old carries flaming torches, examines crops, engages in drinking bouts and sings and dances.

Third-Month Street

Also called Goddess of Mercy Street, this is an important fair-festival of the Bai nationality that dates back moir? than a thousand years. From the fifteenth day of the third lunar month through the twentieth, people of various nationalities from Yunnan and neighbouring provinces gather at Dali, Yunnan Province, for trade fairs, archery contest sand song and dance performances.

The Corban

The Corban is a religious festival of Chinese Muslims, including the Huis, the Uygurs, the Kazaks, the Uzbeks, the Tatars, the Tajiks, the Kirgizes, the Salars, The Dongxiangs and the Bonans. The festival comes seventy days after the Festival of Fast-Breaking. Among the Hui people the Festival of Fast-Breaking is the Lesser Bairam the Corban the Major Bairam.

Nadam Fair

This is a traditional annual fair of the Mongolian people, celebrate with wrestling, horseracing, archery contests and song and dance pertormances.

Song Festival

This is a big song and dance festival of the Zhuang nationality that comes on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the eighth of the third lunar month, the eighth of the fourth month and the twelfth of the fifth month.

(china.org.cn)