People in China believe that as they enter a new year, they should drop the last year into the silence limbo of the past. Common Chinese New Year Activity includes cleaning the houses from top to bottom, purchasing new clothes, paying off debts, painting their doors and window panes, and even getting new haircuts. These Traditional Chinese New Year Activities symbolize new life and new hopes.
A huge clean-up needs to be done before the New Year. Cleaning the house from top to bottom and sweeping away the dust of the gone year is a common New Year activity. Giving a new coat of red paint on the doors and windowpanes has its own reasons. The Chinese tradition says that the color red is considered lucky and is believe that it scares the evil. People also hang "spring couplets" around the house. Spring couplets are paper curls and squares engraved with blessings and auspicious words, such as "springtime", "good fortune", "good health", "wealth" and "longevity". It is customary to paste them upside down as the Mandarin Chinese word signifying upside down "tao", is a homonym of "arrival." Thus, the paper squares signify the "arrival" of spring and the "coming" of prosperous times. Paper lanterns are hung as they bring forth the true essence of the festivity. Decorations of the incoming zodiac animal are also displayed in the house. In China, people like to fill their house with fresh blooms and flowering plants like peach, flowering quince branches, white narcissus and chrysanthemum as they all signify good health, prosperity and happiness.
Chinese people believe that staying awake all night on New Year's Eve would make their aged parents to live a longer and healthier life. Thus a common activity followed on the eve of Chinese New Year is to keep the lights on the entire night. It is also seen as a pretext to make the most of the family reunion. Some families in China even hold religious ceremonies after midnight to usher in the God of the New Year into their homes. It is customary to conclude the ceremonies with a huge barrage of firecrackers to scare away the evil.
One of the popular activities on Chinese New Year is observing the custom of Hong Bao. This involves gifting small red envelopes filled with "lucky money". These envelopes are given to children and unmarried adults by the married couples. The red color is considered to bring good fortune, and the money inside the envelope is used by them to buy holiday treats. Chinese people give a lot of importance to their family and Chinese New Year is the time of family reunion. A family feast is held where the folks of the family gather and acknowledge the spirits of their forefathers.
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