春節習俗英文簡介Customs of the Spring Festival
The Spring Festival is a traditional Chinese festival and also the most important one of the whole year. Through the evolvement of thousands of years， a series of customs are spreading far and wide.
掃塵 Sweeping the Dust
“Dust” is homophonic with "chen”(塵)in Chinese， which means old and past. In this way， "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 cleaning to bid farewell to the old year and usher in the new.
貼春聯 Pasting Spring Couplets
“The Spring Couplet”， also called "couplet” and "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 horizontal 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 couplet 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.
貼窗花和“福”字 Pasting Paper-cuts 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)”， big and small， on walls， doors and doorposts around the houses. "Fu(福)” shows people’s 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)” can be seen in the market before the Festival.
守歲 Staying Up Late on New Year‘s Eve
The tradition of staying up late to see New Year in originated from an interesting folk tale. In ancient China there lived a monster named Year， who was very ferocious. Year always went out from its burrow on New Year’s Eve to devour people. Therefore， on every New Year’s Eve， every household would have supper together. After dinner， no one dared go to sleep and all the family members would sit together， chatting and emboldening each other. Gradually the habit of staying up late on New Year’s 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 will stay up late to see New Year in.
貼年畫 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 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. Four producing areas of New Year Print are Tɑohuɑwu of Suzhou， Yɑngliuqing of Tianjin， Wuqiɑng of Hebei and Weifang of Shangdong. Now the tradition of pasting New Year paintings is still kept in rural China， while it is seldom followed in cities.
春節祝福
猴捧仙桃國安人壽，羊銜嘉穗物阜年豐。
羊角掛雙燈一燈吉祥一燈富，猿吭歌萬曲千曲事業千曲情。
羊辭舊歲山佩玉，猴接新年日流金。
神駒送福奔致富小康路 金猴獻瑞迎改革新氣象
羊辭舊歲山佩玉 猴接新年日流金
取真經，降妖除怪千鈞棒; 酬壯志，涉水拔山萬里程。
強國富民歌駿馬，倡廉反腐頌金猴。
羊毫書美德; 猴棒掃邪風。
年豐人壽羊得草 花好月圓猴采桃
羊尾宜拖兵燼去 猴頭須帶太平來
金猴獻禮，家家順利 玉燕嬉春，九州鋪錦 喜鵲鬧春，事事吉祥 金猴賀歲，一國呈祥
金猴獻瑞財源廣 銀樹呈祥花果碩
羊舞豐收歲 金猴方啟歲 猴吟錦繡春 綠柳又催春