1.Spring Festival

The Spring Festival is known as the most important Festival in China. During the holiday, people go back to hometown from everywhere no matter how far the distance is. They prepare various delicious food and presents for the Spring Festival Eve. Chinese will have a happy family union in the Spring Festival Eve, they believe that’s the end day of last year and they will stay up for good luck until the first day of next year.

　　　In China, the most traditional and popular Spring Festival food is dumpling, which looks like the moon with vegetables and meat mixed in it. The Chinese name of dumpling is “JIAO ZI”, ”JIAO” means ”cross”, ”ZI” is Chinese traditional time represents “24:00”, so the Chinese word “JIAO ZI” means “cross 24:00”, just the dividing point of last year and next year. So when it comes to 24:00, every family begins eating dumplings. Firecracker is also necessary for Spring Festival, the story of Firecracker is: Long ago, in a small village, there appeared a savage animal called “NIAN”, this animal always came out to eat people in the Eve. One day, villagers found three things can make “NIAN” scared: Red color, Fire and noise. So when “NIAN” came again, villagers put up red paper on the door and set firecracker everywhere. After that, “NIAN” disappeared from that village. Now putting up red paper on the door and setting firecracker becomes Spring Festival customs and people believe doing these will bring their family safety.

　　　Spring Festival is also the happiest time for children, because they can get red envelope containing money as a gift from the elder. During the Spring Festival, any unfortunate word cannot be heard because it will make people upset and unhappy. People also make use of this holiday to visit their relatives and bring them some presents and well-wishing.

2.The Lantern Festival

　　　 The Lantern Festival is January 15 on the lunar calendar. The lunar January is the first month of a year and 15th is the first day of full moon. Therefore, Lantern Festival is an important Festival right after Spring Festival.

　　　During Lantern Festival, people go along the street to watch lanterns and children light their own small lanterns for some fun. The biggest and most beautiful lantern is the dragon lantern, which looks like a flying dragon, held by several young guys. One with a ball in hand leads the dragon to move.

　　　Some lanterns have puzzles on them, called lantern puzzle, the one who gets the answer could receive small presents and be happy for his intelligence.

　　　The traditional food for Lantern Festival is rice glue ball. Rice glue ball is a flavor ball with filling in it, for example, peanut filling, sesame filling and jam filling…,the rice glue ball’s shape is just like the full moon appears in the sky. This kind of dessert is especially welcomed by children.

3.Tomb- sweeping Day

　　　Tomb–sweep Day is an ancient festival in spring, also called Qing Ming Festival. In ancient China, the emperor worshipped heaven and earth in order to bless for harvest. People worshipped their ancestors with sacrifice and showed their missing for ancestors.

　　　Tomb-sweeping Day, are always rainy days, just like the sky crying for dead people. A Chinese poem described as following:

　　　Qing Ming usually comes with rainy days

　　　Passengers on the way are full of soreness

　　　I ask a Buffalo boy for tavern to release my sadness

　　　He points to the village covered by apricot blossoms

　　　This poem “The Day of Qing Ming” is written by a poet called Du Mu in Tang Dynasty. Qing Ming Festival is the day to worship his mother with family, but the writer goes alone in the rainy days as a passenger far from his hometown, he felt deeply upset and sorrowed. He has to find a tavern to have a drink, perhaps in this way he will release himself from sadness.　　　

4.The Dragon Boat Festival

　　　The Dragon Boat Festival is in May 5th on the lunar calendar. The beginning of this festival is in memory of Qu Yuan, a wise minister and poet in Chu dynasty, who jumped into Mi Luo River in lunar May 5th for despair of country, unfair treat and defamation. People threw rice dumplings to River to protect his body from eating by fish and showed their respect for Qu Yuan’s noble spirit.

　　　In recent China, people also eat rice dumplings in Dragon Boat Festival. From the name, we can directly know the campaign of this festival is Dragon Boating. A team of strong men on the Dragon Boat will try their best to win 1st and show Chinese strongest spirits.

　　　People use moxa to clean themselves and use five-color thread crossing small children’s arms and fingers to keep illness far away.

5. Mid-Autumn Day

　　Mid-autumn Day is August 15th on lunar calendar. According to history records, Chinese emperor has tradition that worship the Sun in spring and worship the Moon in autumn. As august 15th is exactly the middle of autumn, so it is called Mid-Autumn Day

　　There are a lot of stories about the moon since ancient China.

　　One most famous story is Chang’e flying to the moon. Thousands of years ago, there were 9 suns in the sky, many people felt too hot to live. A young man called Yi was brave enough and shot 8 suns to the ground and saved people. One day Yi got a potion of elixir from Queen Mother and gave his wife Chang’e to keep. A man named Peng Meng knew about the elixir and wanted to get it from Chang’e. One day when Yi was out for hunting, Peng Meng went to rob the elixir. In order to protect the elixir, Chang’e swallowed all of the elixir then flied to the moon.

In memory of Chang’e, she is recognized as the goddess of the moon.

　　　The traditional food of Mid-Autumn Day is Moon cake, a round baked cake with fillings in it. The round shape of moon cake represents family reunion. In the night of Mid-Autumn Day, every family has moon cake and watches the moon.

6. The Double Ninth Festival

　　　The Double Ninth Festival is an important traditional Chinese festival in September 9th on lunar calendar. It is the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, ancient Chinese believes nine represents sun, the brightest thing, September 9th has two nine, the sun is doubled, so call it Double Ninth Festival. Nine also means Long in Chinese words, so the Double Ninth Festival is also recognized The Old Festival.

　　　In Double Ninth Festival, people go to their ancestors’ tombs to worship with coat for winner.

　　　The campaign for Double Ninth Festival is climbing mountain and planting a kind of plant called “Zhu Yu”. A poem written by famous Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei is as following:

　　　I stay alone as a visitor in a country foreign

　　　The festival makes me feel homesick and missing

　　　My brothers must have already climbed to High Mountain

　　　Everyone can plant ZhuYu there except me, a lonely person

　　　This poem’s name is “On the Double-ninth Day thinking of my brothers”. This poem is full of sadness and homesick.

　　　In autumn, chrysanthemum is in blossom. People can look at the beautiful flowers and climb mountains as they like.