Chinese-New-Year-农历新年——春节英文介绍

1、,This PPT is a simple introduction for Chinese Lunar new year.,Spring Festival The Chinese New Year,Ram Year Transport during the Spring Festival Time for Celebration Laba Festival Preliminary Eve Special Purchases for the Spring Festival Sweeping the Dust Pasting Spring Couplets Pasting Paper-cuts

2、and “Up-sided Fu” Pasting New Year Prints Dinner on the Eve Staying Up Late on New Years Eve The CCTV New Years Gala Setting off Firecrackers Breakfast in the New Year New Years Visit and Gift Money Temple Fair Lantern Festival Activity of Lantern Festival,Contents,Ram/Sheep/Goat Year,Chinese ancest

3、ors invented the 10 Tian Gan (or heavenly stems) and 12 Di Zhi (or 12 earthly branches) for chronological purpose. Later, people used 12 animals to symbolize the 12 earthly branches in order to make things easier to memorize and the animals (Chinese Zodiac Sign) in order are the mouse, ox, tiger, ra

4、bbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. You might found out that many Chinese people strongly believe that the time of a persons birth is primary factor in determining that persons characteristics. 2015 is Chinese Ram Year. So we call this lunar new year the “Spring Festival

5、 of Ram Year”.,The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together, just like Christmas in the West. All people living away from home go back, becoming the busiest time for transportation systems of about half a month from the Spring

6、Festival. Airports, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded with home returnees, so transport in this special time is an unavoidable social problem.,Transport during the Spring Festival Period,The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, often one month later

7、than the Gregorian calendar. It originated in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC-c. 1100 BC) from the peoples sacrifice to gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one. The preparing work for Spring Festival starts every year in the early days of the 12th lunar month and wi

8、ll last till the mid 1st lunar month of the next year. Excitement and happiness are palpable this time of the year, and they reach the peak on lunar new years eve.,Time for celebration,On the 8th day of the 12th lunar month, many families make laba porridge, a delicious kind of porridge made with mo

9、re than 8 kinds of ingredients, such as glutinous rice, millet, seeds of Jobs tears, jujube berries, lotus seeds, beans, longan and gingko (the ingredient is different from place to place). As a result, we also call this day “Laba Festival”.,Laba Festival,Some large Buddhist temples would offer Laba

10、 porridge to general public to show their faith to Buddha.,The 23rd day of the 12th lunar month is called Preliminary Eve. At this time, people offer sacrifice to the kitchen god. Now however, most families make delicious food to enjoy themselves.,Preliminary Eve,After the Preliminary Eve, people be

11、gin preparing for the coming New Year. This is called “Seeing the New Year in”.,Store owners are busy then as everybody goes out to purchase necessities for the New Year. Materials not only include edible oil, rice, flour, chicken, duck, fish and meat, but also fruit, candies and kinds of nuts. What

12、s more, various decorations, new clothes and shoes for the children as well as gifts for the elderly, friends and relatives, are all on the list of purchasing.,special purchases for the Spring Festival,Sweeping the Dust,“Dust” is homophonic with “chen” in Chinese, which means old and past. In this w

13、ay, “sweeping the dust” before the Spring Festival means a thorough cleaning of houses to sweep away bad luck in the past year. This custom shows a good wish of putting away old things to welcome a new life. In a word, just before the Spring Festival comes, every household will give a thorough clean

14、ing to bid farewell to the old year and usher in the new.,Pasting Spring Couplets,“The Spring Couplet”, also called “couplet” or “a pair of antithetical phrases”, is a special form of literature in China. The Spring Couplet is composed of two antithetical sentences on both sides of the door and a ho

15、rizontal scroll bearing an inscription, usually an auspicious phrase, above the gate. The sentence pasting on the right side of the door is called the first line of the couplet and the one on the left the second line. On the eve of the Spring Festival, every household will paste on doors a spring co

16、uplet written on red paper to give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival. In the past, the Chinese usually wrote their own spring couplet with a brush or asked others to do for them, while nowadays, it is common for people to buy the printed spring couplet in the market.,Pasting Paper-cu

17、ts and “Up-sided Fu”,Paper-cuts, usually with auspicious patterns, give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival and express the good wishes of Chinese people looking forward to a good life. In addition to pasting paper-cuts on windows, it is common for Chinese to paste the character “Fu(福)

18、”, big and small, on walls, doors and doorposts around the houses. “Fu(福)” shows peoples yearning toward a good life. Some people even invert the character “Fu(福)” to signify that blessing has arrived because “inverted” is a homonym for “arrive” in Chinese. Now many kinds of paper-cuts and “Fu(福)” c

19、an be seen in the market before the Festival.,Pasting New Year Prints,The custom of pasting New Year Prints originated from the tradition of placing Door Gods on the external doors of houses. With the creation of board carvings, New Year paintings cover a wide range of subjects. The most famous ones

20、 are Door Gods, Surplus Year after Year, Three Gods of Blessing, Salary and Longevity, An Abundant Harvest of Crops, Thriving Domestic Animals and Celebrating Spring. Now the tradition of pasting New Year paintings is still kept in rural China, while it is seldom followed in cities.,Door Gods,Surplu

21、s Year after Year,Three Gods of Blessing, Salary and Longevity,An Abundant Harvest of Crops,Dinner on the eve,People attach great importance to Spring Festival Eve. At that time, all family members eat dinner together. The meal is more luxurious than usual. Dishes such as chicken, fish and bean curd

22、 cannot be excluded, for in Chinese, their pronunciations, respectively ji, yu and doufu, mean auspiciousness, abundance and richness. In north of China, the whole family will sit together to make jiaozi and celebrate the Spring Festival. It is a important tradition since they think jiaozi in sound

23、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.,Staying Up Late on New Years Eve,The tradition of staying up late to see New Year in originated from an interesting fo

24、lk tale. In ancient China there lived a monster named Year, who was very ferocious. Year always went out from its burrow on New Years Eve to devour people. Therefore, on every New Years Eve, every household would have supper together. After dinner, no one dared go to sleep and all the family members

25、 would sit together, chatting and emboldening each other. Gradually the habit of staying up late on New Years Eve is formed. Thus in China, “celebrating the Spring Festival” is also called “passing over the year (guo nian)”.,However, now there are less and less people in cities who stay up late to s

26、ee New Year in.,The CCTV New Years Gala,The New Years Gala is a variety show held by China Central Television (CCTV) since 1983. For every year since then at the turn of the Lunar New Year, the program begins at 8:00PM and lasts five or six hours. It brings laughter to billions of people, creates ma

27、ny popular words and produces lots of TV phenomena meriting attention. For over twenty years, its value has gone far beyond a variety show. It is essential entertainment for the Chinese both at home and abroad. Many Chinese would like to watch the gala while having the dinner on New Years Eve. 2012

28、Gala Videos: ,Setting off Firecrackers,The firecracker is a unique product in China. In ancient China, the sound of burning bamboo tubes was used to scare away wild animals and evil spirits. With the invention of the gunpowder, “firecracker” is also called “鞭炮binpo” (“炮” in Chinese means gun) and us

29、ed to foster a joyful atmosphere. The first thing every Chinese household does is to set off firecrackers and fireworks, which are meant to bid farewell to the old year and usher in the new. It is a very important activity during the Spring Festival.,Breakfast in the new year,Southern Chinese eat ni

30、angao (New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) on this occasion, because as a homophone, niangao means higher and higher, one year after another.,People in northern China will eat jiaozi, or dumplings, like the dinner of new years eve.,New Years Visit and Gift Money,On the first day of the Chine

31、se lunar year, everybody puts on their best clothes and pays ceremonial calls on their relatives and friends, wishing them all the luck in the coming year. Juniors will greet seniors, wishing them health and longevity, while seniors will give juniors some gift money as a wish for their safety in the

32、 coming year. When friends meet, they will wish each other happiness and prosperity with a big smile. With the development of the new technology, there is a change on the way of giving New Years greetings. In recent year, it is common to send New Years greetings by such modern means of communication

33、 as telephones, emails and text messages.,Temple Fair,Temple fair, usually held outside temples, is a kind of folk custom in China. During the Spring Festival, temple fair is one of the most important activities in someplace of China, in which there are such performances as acrobatics and Kongfu, nu

34、merous kinds of local snacks and many kinds of things for everyday life .,In recent years, the temple fair has become a place for people to appreciate the traditional art and experience the traditional life .,Lantern Festival,The Lantern Festival is another important festival, which falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, however, many people take it as the end of Spring Festival. People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also called the Yuanxiao Festival.Yuanxi