chinese new year
A holiday celebrating the New Year, also called "Spring Festival" (春节), in the traditional Chinese calendar, a lunisolar calendar, falling somewhere between January 21 and February 20. It is mainly celebrated in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, in countries with significant Chinese populations, and in Chinatowns elsewhere. It is broadly called "Lunar New Year" because several other "new year" holidays such as Seollal (Korean New Year) and Tết (Vietnamese New Year) are also celebrated around the same time.
Before 1873, the Japanese had celebrated New Year's festivities around the same time as Chinese New Year. Since 1873, however, when Japan adopted the widely used Gregorian calendar, New Year's festivities are being held instead on January 1.
Many of the New year traditions are said to have originated from the legend of Nian.
See also
- antithetical couplet
- chinese paper-cut
- chinese zodiac
- dao fu
- dragon dance
- fai chun
- firecrackers
- fireworks
- holed coin
- hongbao
- lantern
- lantern festival
- lion dance
- tanghulu
- tangyuan
- yuanbao