- When the Spring Festival took shape
In December 2023, the United Nations recognised the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, as a floating holiday from 2024.
This millennia-old festival has evolved a lot over the last century. During the time of the Republic of China (1911–1949), when the government was keen to promote the Western Gregorian calendar and ways, the celebration of Nian 年 (Lunar New Year) was suppressed. Then, on 27 September 1949, at the first plenary session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference of the People’s Republic of China, the Gregorian calendar was adopted, and it was stated unequivocally that the first day of January was to be called New Year’s Day, while the first day of the first lunar month, which falls sometime between 21 January and 20 February, was officially renamed Spring Festival. This distinction between the Gregorian and lunar concepts of Nian (New Year) solved the conundrum that had troubled modern China for nearly half a century!
- Traditional vs modern ways to celebrate the Spring Festival
Many Chinese people have shown their displeasure as in recent years, the nianwei 年味(Lunar New Year flavour or atmosphere) has weakened or even vanished. Why is that?
Traditionally, reunion forms the cultural core of the Spring Festival. This means activities like enjoying the home-cooked nianyefan 年夜饭 (Lunar New Year’s Eve dinner) with the whole family, older people giving hongbao 紅包 (red packets containing money) to younger people and junior family members visiting their elders with gifts to show respect, or friends visiting each other with gifts.
More hallmarks of the traditional holiday include posting Spring Festival couplets, decorating the house, engaging in shousui 守岁 (staying up to welcome the Lunar New Year) with firecrackers announcing the new year’s arrival, making offerings and praying to ancestors and deities for good luck and visiting temples to burn the first incense. Those enjoying the festivities might watch lion or dragon dances with wushu 武术 (martial arts) performances or enjoy TV galas, all suffused with the majesty of traditional culture.
However, since the 2000s, with the breakneck development of modern China, Spring Festival celebrations have changed in seven main respects.
- Lunar New Year gifts, from stomach-filling food items to fine goodies
In the past, people would pay visits to their relatives with gifts such as zongzi 粽子 (sticky rice dumplings wrapped in leaves), traditional Chinese New Year (CNY) deep-fried treats, sausages or even a whole chicken or goose. Others might bring cigarettes or Chinese wine. These days, Spring Festival gifts tend to be expensive goodies like imported fruits, red wine, health-boosting products, fine teas or costly dried seafood like scallops and fish maw (swim bladders). With today’s material affluence, many prefer just to give hongbao as a token of goodwill.
- Celebratory entertainment also embraces change
Before the 2000s, people largely stayed at home for CNY, chatting while enjoying snacks. Some played cards or Mahjong, while kids played with fireworks. Between the 1990s and 2000s, singing karaoke and drinking some alcohol became popular. Nowadays, youngsters may stick to online games and seniors to social media like Douyin 抖音 and Xiaohongshu 小红书. Sometimes they enjoy good tea while watching CNY TV programmes together. Others may prefer going hiking or to a scenic spot nearby for some exercise or fresh air.
- A big family reunion dinner at home on xuxi 徐夕 (Lunar New Year’s Eve) is no longer so important
In recent years, many families have chosen to eat out at restaurants in the company of other relatives and friends. That saves them the trouble of cooking, adds variety to the food on offer and makes the atmosphere livelier. Some families, especially young couples with a child, skip the reunion dinner altogether and go travelling in China or abroad (mostly Japan or Thailand) to make the most of the holiday.
- Nianhuojie 年货节 (Spring Festival Shopping Festival): Consumerism eclipses tradition
Before the 2000s, both children and adults made traditional festive snacks at home, like youjiao油角 (fried dumplings with sweet filling), jiandui 煎堆 (fried sesame balls) and sweet egg twists for southerners and noodles or jiaozi 饺子 (dumplings) for northerners. I have vivid memories of making those fried delicacies, from preparing the dough to shaping them by hand and frying them in oil, all under the watchful eye of my grandma, and the first fabulous taste of those oily morsels still stays with me. Nowadays, e-commerce is booming and many platforms, like Jingdong 京東, Taobao 淘宝 and Pinduoduo 拼多多, launch mega sales in the name of the ‘Spring Festival Shopping Festival’, selling at big discounts a great variety of festive goods, including these yummy snacks. Who would bother to make them at home? As a result, consumerism has buried a delicious tradition, and younger generations lose out on memorable experiences.
- Festive activities evolve
Reunions or visits home during Spring Festival are not really a must in the vast and fast-developing China of today. Instead, people use WeChat to send greetings or video-call their loved ones, and virtual gifts (especially for gaming lovers) or WeChat hongbao have become the norm for expressing good wishes and showing respect.
On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, activities are held to welcome the God of Wealth, which is particularly popular in contemporary China, where most people want to get rich quick! The seventh day marks Renri 人日, the common birthday of humankind, which spurs another happy wave of WeChat greetings. The Lantern Festival, on the 15th day of the first lunar month, marks the culmination of the Spring Festival, embodying unity. Usually, eating tangyuan 汤圆 (glutinous rice balls), appreciating lanterns and guessing lantern riddles are must-do activities. But the Lantern Festival, nowadays dubbed Chinese Valentine’s Day, is also celebrated by couples or lovebirds as a day for dating and exchanging WeChat hongbao or gifts, motivated by online shopping.
- New trends emerge in a fast-paced society
While the motto youqian meiqian, huijia guonian 有钱沒钱，回家过年 (with or without money, one ought to go home for Lunar New Year) is still heard, some young migrant workers living solo in big cities opt to stay at work – or even volunteer to work – as a means of binian 避年 (escaping the CNY hustle). This way, they can avoid the chunyun 春运 (Spring Festival travel rush), as well as cuihun 催婚 (being coaxed into marriage) during family reunions. Notably, quite a few of those going home for CNY ‘rent’ a supposed girlfriend, just to ease the older generation’s anxieties.
- Weird, fun Chinese New Year scenes
In big cities, you may see deserted streets, shopping centres and restaurants, because most urbanities have left for their ancestral hometowns or villages. But in small towns and the countryside, the hustle and bustle of traditional activities contribute to boisterous, happy moods everywhere, creating a great Lunar New Year atmosphere. There are also a few Spring Festival differences between Southern and Northern China. The Chunwan 春晚 (China Central Television/CCTV Spring Festival Gala) on Lunar New Year’s Eve may catch many people’s attention in the North, but Cantonese audiences in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao barely watch it: they would rather watch local holiday programming. Similarly, in Cantonese-speaking areas, strolling along huajie 花街 (flower streets) to appreciate the blooming flowers and buy a few with auspicious meanings to decorate your home is a time-honoured activity in the days before the Spring Festival. In northern provinces, there’s no such custom, but there are other festive events, including Spring Festival miaohui 廟會(temple fairs) and yangge 秧歌folk dancing.
To sum it up, Lunar New Year traditions and trends vary from place to place. Ways of celebration have changed. But the truly traditional core of the Spring Festival remains: upholding family values and aspiring to live a happy life.
