Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
I'm Alina Wang and I'm Ben Hedges, and today we'll be taking you through some of the most important traditions of Chinese new year and historical backgroud. We will look at some of the legends behind Chinese new year and how to celebrate it.
The Chinese have specific waty to celebrate their new year. If you walk down the street in Chinatown during Chinese New Year, you see a variety of ancient traditions such as red banners, firecrackers and lion dance performances, streets are filled with lively celebration.
An Asian Chinese story told a chilly start to this festive holiday, it begins with an ancient Chinese beast called Nian. Every New Year Nian would rise from swelling in the sea to ravage Chinese village in livestock and hurting people. The villages soon found out from a wise gray-haired old man that the only way to scare the beast away was to set off firecrackers and light lamps and to hang red banners on each door.
For many Chinese, New Year celebrations will not be the same without firecrackers. These tradition originates from ancient China as a Chinese was the first to invent gunpowder as early as during the ninth century. It was believed that ghost, bad spirits and even the legendary monster called Nian that came out attack people during a new year were afaid of loud nouses, so the Ancient Chinese would fill bamboo stems with gunpowder to make smell explosions to drive away Nian, evil spirits and bad luck. Another popular traditional belief was that the noise from the firecrackers would awaken the sleeping dragon that fly acrsoss the sky, bringing plentiful rain for their crops.