What do the color red, fire and loud noises have in common? All of them scare away the Nian, an ancient Chinese monster. This has led to all of them being used to celebrate the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival.
The Spring Festival is the most important festival of the year in China. People celebrate it by sweeping the dust out, giving gifts and hanging red couplets. Red couplets are red decorations that are hung on doors to bring good luck and to worship the door gods. “Worshipping the door gods is an important part of the festival,” Ying Zheng, the main presenter of this session at UMPI’s University Day 2016, said.
The dust is swept out of homes because the Chinese word for dust “chen” is almost identical to the word for the old or the past. “Sweeping the house means to sweep out the old,” Zheng said.
The Chinese New Year is also celebrated with Lucky Money, which is a gift from the older generation to the younger. The gift is money in red envelopes, which is believed to bring luck and prosperity in the New Year.
The most important thing about the Chinese New Year, however, is family. People come from all around to spend the time with their family. Zheng compared the holiday to a mix of our New Year and Christmas. Others have compared it to New Years celebrations, Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Toward the end of the presentation Zeyu Zhao played traditional Chinese New Year music on the violin. One song was about a pair of tragic lovers who are comparable to Romeo and Juliet.
A good-sized audience enjoyed the presentation. Some particularly enjoyed the music. “My favorite part was the music: it was a tragedy of two lovers,” Hana Hassan, who was in attendance, said.
Love is what connects us all. We are all brought together by love. Be this love of family or love of a significant other, as the music celebrated, love is cross-cultural.
