In Bangkok, there are large celebrations in Chinatown, Yaowarat Road, where the main road is closed and turned into a pedestrian street, with a member of the royal family in attendance each year to open the ceremony, such as Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Chinese New Year is observed as a public holiday in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, Satun, and Songkhla. Celebrations are centered primarily in Binondo in Manila, the oldest Chinatown in the world, with other celebrations taking place in key cities. Chinese temples are generally open for 24 hours on the first day, distributing red envelopes and sometimes rice, fruits or sugar to the poor.citation needed On 19 January 2001, the Ministry of Religious Affairs issued Ministerial Decree No.13 of 2001 on Imlek Day as a National Holiday to set Hari Tahun Baru Imlek as a “facultative holiday” for the Chinese community.
Nianhua
We’ve mentioned a lot about the colour red in the celebrations and what it symbolises. The colour red is believed to bring positivity and happiness and also ward off evil spirits. The red envelopes are a token of good fortune and symbolise good luck. Another long‑standing tradition is passing red envelopes, known as Hóngbāo, to friends and family.
Welcoming the God of Wealth (迎财神)
In northern China, people traditionally eat dumplings and noodles, while in the south, Nian Gao (sticky rice cake) is a must-have, symbolizing rising fortunes. Wearing new red clothes on New Year’s Day symbolizes a fresh start and invites good luck. New clothes, especially for children, add excitement to the holiday. To protect themselves from the bad luck of their Ben Ming Nian, those born in the Year of the Horse are encouraged to wear red throughout 2026. In 2026, the cycle brings us to the Horse, the seventh animal in the zodiac order. Festivities include red decorations, elaborate meals, thorough cleaning of homes, and visiting family.
It is convenient for people to buy gifts for their New Year visits as well as their home decorations at these markets. These usually open-air markets feature New Year–related products such as flowers, toys, clothing, and even fireworks and firecrackers. Common gifts include fruits (especially oranges, but never pears), cakes, biscuits, chocolates, and candies. In addition to red envelopes, typically given from older individuals to younger ones, small gifts such as food or sweets are exchanged between friends or relatives from different households during Chinese New Year. With the demon vanquished, peace returned to the village, and in gratitude, the elders bestowed upon the courageous young man a red envelope filled with money as a token of appreciation for his valor and for freeing the village from the demon’s menace. When the sui was going to reach out and touch the child’s head, the pillow suddenly brightened with the golden light, and the sui was scared away, so the exorcism effect of “red paper wrapped copper money” spread in China (see also Chinese numismatic charms).
The beast is said to have terrorised people every year, until he was defeated due to his fear of red, loud noises and fire. Primarily in traditional Chinese culture, the colour red originates from the myth of a monster called Nian. This is why many people clean their homes before the celebrations, as many clean to remove any misfortune or bad luck lingering ahead of the new year. The 15-day festival is about saying goodbye to the past year and, like the season of spring itself, symbolises renewal. This is because it marks the beginning of the spring season and the end of winter in the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. While celebrations and traditions take place annually, the exact date of the Lunar New Year changes every year as it begins with the arrival of a new moon, which signifies the start of a new month.
Using the broom, swearing, and breaking any dinnerware without appeasing the deities are also considered taboo. Typical actions such as lighting fires and using knives are considered taboo; thus, all consumable food has to be cooked beforehand. It is a traditional practice to light fireworks, burn bamboo sticks and firecrackers, and perform a lion dance to ward off evil spirits.
Why Is 2026 the Year of the Horse?
- Marking the first new moon of the lunar calendar, it falls on February 17 in 2026, kicking off the 15-day Spring Festival.
- This is why many people clean their homes before the celebrations, as many clean to remove any misfortune or bad luck lingering ahead of the new year.
- The animals and performances are believed to bring good fortune.
- The highlight of the whole Spring Festival, the Lantern Festival happens on the 15th and final day (March 3 in 2026).
- On the Chinese opera stage, a painted red face usually denotes a sacred or loyal personage and sometimes a great emperor.
- Geomancy masters may interpret the data differently, but there is usually a consensus on what the year means for each zodiac animal based on the positions of the stars.
- As an official public holiday, Chinese people can get nine days’ off from work, February 15th to February 23th.The Chinese New Year of 2027 falls on February 6th (Tuesday), and will last to February 10th.
And every year, a heavenly stem (one of five elements, which fall into the yin or yang category) is paired with an earthly branch (one of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals). Marking the first new moon of the lunar calendar, it falls on February 17 in 2026, kicking off the 15-day Spring Festival. Chinese New Year is not just one day but over 30 days of festivities and activities, which have their own calendar.
If you are interested in any one of the festivals, China Xian Tour can recommend you the cities with strong festival atmosphere and then tailor a trip to include more unique experiences of the festival. The common things to avoid are that do not speak bad words, break things or sweep the floor (in case you sweep out the good luck). In solar calendar, it is usually between January 20th – February 20th. All the family members gather together to enjoy a fancy dinner, which symbolizes family harmony, reunion and happiness. When choosing gifts, attention should be paid to practicality and the preferences of the recipient, as well as the festival cultural connotations and social etiquette. —Wishing you a happy new year, good luck, and all the best!
- The poem Yuan Ri (元日) also includes the word bao zhu (爆竹, “exploding bamboo”), which is believed to be a reference to firecrackers,citation needed instead of the previous tradition of firing bamboo, both of which are called the same in the Chinese language.
- The firecracker was still called bao zhu (爆竹), thus equating the new and old traditions.
- It’s believed these envelopes — known as hongbao/lai see — can protect children by warding off evil spirits, called sui.
- During the week before New Year’s Day, spring cleaning in homes is performed.
- And this time of year, families can be seen enjoying the likes of fish, which represents fortune, as well as dumplings that symbolise wealth and glutinous rice balls, marking family reunion.
- It is convenient for people to buy gifts for their New Year visits as well as their home decorations at these markets.
The parade is attended by some 500,000 people, along with another 3 million TV viewers. They invited a variety of other groups from the city to participate, and they marched down what today are Grant Avenue and Kearny Street, carrying colourful flags, banners, lanterns, drums, and firecrackers to drive away evil spirits. In 1849, with the discovery of gold and the ensuing California Gold Rush, over 50,000 people came to San Francisco to seek their fortune or just a better way of life. The festival incorporates Grant and Kearny Streets into its street festival and parade route, respectively. The San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade is the oldest and one of the largest events of its kind outside of Asia, and one of the largest Asian cultural events in North America. Many communities throughout all of California celebrate with large celebrations taking place in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles, as well as in Fresno, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Rosa, and Stockton.
Word of the emperor’s gesture spread, and later it became the custom of people in general, who used Xuan paper instead of gold leaves. The poem describes people cleaning millet stacks, offering mijiu (rice wine) to guests, slaughtering lambs, visiting their master’s home, toasting him, and expressing wishes for longevity together. Before the new year celebration was established, ancient Chinese gathered and celebrated the end of the harvest in autumn.
One of the key celebrations is the Chinese New Year parade with floats and fireworks taking place along the streets in Chinatown, Manhattan, the largest Chinese New Year parade outside Asia. However, even smaller cities that are historically connected with Chinese immigration, such as Butte, Montana, have recently hosted parades. The common activities are the lion dance, dragon dance, New Year market, and food festival. The festival in Sydney is organized in partnership with a different Chinese province each year. The festival also attracts international media coverage, reaching millions of viewers in Asia.
How to Say Happy New Year in Chinese?
Visitors will be showered with gifts after catching up over Lunar New Year treats. Bags are stocked with presents and fruits to give out at people’s homes. For instance, in some northern areas people tend to serve dumplings and noodles, whereas the south can’t live without steamed rice.
According to Chinese metaphysics consultant Vicki Iskandar, the Year of the Horse comes every 12 years and the last time “we had the Fire Horse as the ‘pillar’ of the year was in 1966”. The Chinese zodiac system combines a 12-year animal cycle with a 60-year elemental cycle created by pairing the five elements with yin and yang. The Vietnamese zodiac is slightly different, as it honours the cat instead of the rabbit and the buffalo instead of the ox. According to legend, as God prepared to depart from Earth, he invited all the animals to bid him farewell.
Since then, on every New Year’s Eve, parents have wrapped coins in red paper to protect their children. Additionally, dumplings and spring rolls symbolize wealth, whereas sweet rice balls symbolize family togetherness. The pomelo, which is believed to bring constant prosperity, also has a pronunciation that symbolize good luck. Other traditional foods consist of noodles, fruits, dumplings, spring rolls, and Tangyuan, which are also known as sweet rice balls.
interesting facts about Lunar New Year that you may not know
Since Chinese New Year falls on different days of the week each year, the governments of some of these countries choose to adjust working days to create a longer public holiday. New Year’s celebrations continued under the Yuan dynasty, when people also gave nian gao (年糕, “year cakes”) to relatives. It is believed that placing the couplets on the door to the home in the days preceding the new year was widespread during the Song dynasty. The Chunlian (Spring Couplets) was written by Meng Chang, an emperor of the Later Shu (935–965 AD), during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period：”新年納餘慶，嘉節號長春” (“Enjoying past legacies in the new year, the holiday foreseeing the long-lasting spring”). Eventually, men zhuang became a symbol of good luck, and people started sending them to friends on New Year’s Day, calling them by a new name, bai nian tie. During the Jin dynasty (266–420), people started the New Year’s Eve tradition of all-night revelry called shousui (守歲).
(If you haven’t prepared your own “gou” yet, here’s an easy recipe for radish cake, a beloved Lunar New Year dish.) That means eating these treats is believed to lead to improvements and growth in the coming year. This is why wearing the fiery color, along with hanging banners and lighting firecrackers or fireworks, are Lunar New Year traditions, all of which are still followed today. The man claimed to have scared Nian away by hanging red banners on his door, lighting firecrackers and donning red clothing. According to the legend, every Lunar New Year’s Eve this ferocious underwater beast with sharp teeth and horns would crawl onto the land and attack a nearby village.
Traditional foods include carp for long life, whole fish for abundance, dumplings and spring rolls for wealth, long noodles for longevity, sticky rice cakes for success, and citrus fruits for good luck. On the first day of the New Year, sweeping or cleaning is avoided as it is believed to brush away good fortune. In 2026 the Chinese New Year marks the Year of the Horse, according to the Chinese zodiac calendar. These greetings or phrases may also be used just before children receive their red packets, when gifts are exchanged, when visiting temples, or even when tossing the shredded ingredients of yusheng, particularly popular in Malaysia and Singapore. For example, as breaking objects during the new year is considered inauspicious, one may then say 歲歲平安 (Suìsuì-píng’ān) immediately, which means “everlasting peace year after year”.
Children born in the last lunar calendar year were Snakes, while those born on or after the Lunar New Year in 2027 will be Goats, and so on. Lunar New Year, widely considered the most important event of the year in China and Chinese communities around the planet, is nearly here. Keep in mind that different regions and minorities may celebrate the days on different dates, or have different names or practices for certain days. Each day of the 16-day-long festival has a name, Ringospin Casino and usually an assigned purpose or meaning. In the Chinese tradition, a person’s birth year—rather than their birth month—is considered key to understanding character and fortune. Many traditional dishes served during this festival reflect wishes for prosperity, health, and longevity.