CHINESE CULTURE

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In 1912, the Republic of China officially adopted the Gregorian calendar used in the West, but the traditional Chinese festival continued to be calculated in the old lunar calendar which goes back more than four thousand years. The way the Chinese calculate each month is called “first moon”, “second moon” and so on,

In the Chinese calendar each day and each month represent something, which might happen on each day of each month. Many Chinese today still strongly believe the predictions that are written down on the calendar. As we all know the Chinese horoscope has twelve animals, they are Rat, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Each animal represents the year the person is born. At the beginning of each year, most Chinese will buy an Almanac, inside it works out the future for each animal for that year.

CHINESE NEW YEAR

Chinese New Year is the most important festival of the year. It is the first day of the full moon, it means the renewal of life, the new beginning, new hope, new prospects. The traditional way of welcoming the New Year, is to spend New Year’s Eve with the whole family having a meal together, then the whole family would go out to a special market (called flower market) and walk around there till early morning. This is very important, especially for the children to stay up late till the early morning; it means they wish their parents longevity. In the morning the children have to give their parents good -wishes, and in return their parents will give them lucky money placed inside a red packet.

The start of the Chinese New Year usually takes place sometime in February. In this year, 2000, February 5 marks the first day of the Year of the Dragon.
There are a number of different beliefs as to how Lunar New year started, but one of the more colourful Chinese legends involves a beast with an enormous mouth that could swallow people whole. This beast, named Nian, terrified people until an old man (an immortal god in disguise) tamed it, riding Nian into the sunset. Before the old man left, he suggested that people hang red paper decorations on their windows and doors at each year's end. The color red was the color the beast feared most - and thus it would scare Nian, if the beast ever came back.

And so the tradition of Guo Nian started. Guo, which means "to pass" or "to observe," and Nian, which means "year," was once used to mean "survive the [beast] Nian" but is now used to "celebrate the [New] Year."

In particular, the Chinese believe New Year festivities, is a time for renewal, family reunion, eating rich foods and paying respects to ancestors and elders. In addition, the Chinese believe that what you do and how you act during this period will determine what kind of year you have.

CHING MING AND CHUNG YEUN

The next festival is Ching Ming (third lunar month) when people go to their ancestor’s grave to pay their respects. Later on in the year at around September there is another festival called Chung Yeun, which is very similar. On these two occasions, the whole family gather in front of their ancestors graves, tidy the graves and leave some fresh flowers and food, and burn paper money, cars, and houses, for use by the deceased person.

DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL

In the middle of the year, there is a festival known as the Dragon Boat Festival, perhaps this is one of the best known festivals in the west. Held in Hong Kong every year, they have boats for foreign devils (our name for Westerners), and the Chinese. It is always good humoured and friendly. The original story is about a poet and scholar in 277 BC whose advice was ignored by the Emperor and as a result the country was in decline. He felt that was the only honourable thing left for him to do was to end his life, so he drowned himself on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The peasants tried to rescue him in vain, and in order to preserve his body, they wrapped rice in lotus leaves and threw them in the river; hoping the sea creatures would eat the food and leave the body alone, they also decided to beat drums to frighten them away. This tradition has lasted to today, every year in May, when we have boat racing, we eat sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves.

MOON FESTIVAL

During this festival we eat moon cakes, which are made with red beans, pastry, preserved duck egg yolk, and black nuts. The story behind it was that long ago the earth had ten suns and they were the sons of Jade Emperor. The heat from these sons (suns) of the Emperor had caused droughts and famine. The Emperor saw what his sons did and he went to see the god of Hou Yi and asked him to persuade his sons to leave the earth to end the catastrophe, but they refused. This had angered Hou Yi so he decided to shoot them down one by one, but Hou Yi’s wife pleaded him to leave one sun to keep the earth warm and bright. Because he had done this without telling the Emperor, he and his wife were forced to remain on earth. This had upset his wife, and in order to win her back, he collected all the herbs that would give them their power back to ascend to heaven again. Unfortunately for him, his wife ate it all herself and flew up to the moon and remained there. The moon cake, represent Hou Yi’s wife and the black bullhorn shaped nuts represent Hou Yi himself.

RELIGION

Chinese religion is based on earth and heaven, and is often mistaken by outsiders as Buddhism. In fact most Chinese do not have a particular or strong religion, we believe that what goes round must come round, and reincarnation, whether the next life turns out to be an animal or another human life, depends on the luck of your last one. Luck (haoming) and happiness (fuqi) will determine your next life after you die. Chinese religion is based on worshipping the god (baishen), with influence from Confucian philosophy. Because we believe that there is life after death, nearly all Chinese families place Tian Gong (shrines) inside and outside their houses, where we burnt joss sticks morning and night to pay respect to our ancestors. On their birth and death dates, all members of the family come home for a feast to show respect.

CULTURE

China has a history of five thousand years and is the only continuous ancient civilization. Chinese culture is rich and profound and Chinese may have more historical records than the whole world put together. A major source of Chinese culture is her pre-industrial revolution science and technology. Another reason for the richness of Chinese culture is that China has always been a country of many ethnic groups. All these peoples have their own legacies, but they share the same legacy, that of being Chinese as well. In the West, Confucianism is the best known inspiration from Chinese culture, and probably this is true for many Chinese people as well. Other world influences drawn from China include Taoism, mysticism, and more recently the late Chairman Mao. The richest Buddhist legacy is also Chinese, although Buddhism did not originate in China.