新年快乐！Sharing my Chinese culture

新年快乐！(Happy New Year!) Today is the Lunar New Year; the year of the snake (蛇) according to the Chinese horoscope.

Part of this year living out here in Newfoundland is learning about this province's people and culture, but at the same time, it is also about sharing my culture with them. Even though almost all the towns I've been to across Canada have at least one Chinese restaurant (towns of at least 3,000 inhabitants), the Canadians who do not live in the urban centres of Canada in fact know very little about the Chinese culture, or food for that matter! (Chicken balls are not Chinese, but Chinese-Canadian, and even so, the only thing Chinese about them is that it is made and served by Chinese at restaurants. )

Over the next week, I will invite my students to join me in my festivities. They will learn about the New Year legend, song, dances, tradition, greetings, and even try some New Year sweets! Here is a collection of video clips I have compiled for my students about Chinese New Year. For an English summary of the video, please refer to the description below.

Summary of Chinese New Year celebrations
Date:
This year the Lunar New Year falls on February 10th, 2013. This date changes every year, because the Chinese follow the lunar calendar. It wasn't until around 1929 that China finally started using the Gregorian calendar, and even then, the Gregorian calendar was more for business purposes, and the festivals continued to use the lunar calendar.

Horoscope year:
2013 is the year of the snake (蛇). Snakes have a calm characteristic, so this year will be a quite year of introspection, reflection and getting in touch with the inner you.

New Year legend:
Why do Chinese celebrate the new year with red, lion dance and firecrackers? The legend goes that there once was a monster called "Nian" (年) who terrorized the villagers, because that's what monsters do best. The people thought hard and long on how to ward off the horrible 年. Finally someone noticed that 年 was afraid of things that were more ferocious than him, namely, the colour red, fire and loud noises. Hence, at the beginning of each year, the Chinese decorate their homes with red, light paper lanterns, and hold a lion dance with the sounds of cymbals clashing, and drums beating. A final chain of red firecrackers is lite to banish the 年 away until the next year.

New Year song:
In English-speaking countries, people start the new year singing "Auld Lang Syne" which is a Scotish poem talking of the good times. The Chinese also have a new year song, titled Gong Xi Gong Xi (恭喜恭喜) which translates to congratulations.

Gifts:
Instead of giving gifts, Chinese usually give gifts of money in red good luck envelops. Also, it is those who are established and married that give money, and those who are unmarried receive the envelops. ;)