Major Traditional Chinese Festivals 中国主要传统节日

Spring Festival 春节(the 1st day of the 1st month on the Chinese lunar calendar)

Also known as guonian过年 (celebrating or spending the New Year or the Spring Festival), it is China’s oldest traditional festival. Celebrations will last from the New Year’s Eve to the 15th day of the first lunar month. People traditionally spend New Year’s Eve at home with all the family members getting together. For the festival, people decorate their windows with paper cuts, place New Year’s couplets on the frame of their front door, pin up Neo Year’s paintings in their living rooms, and eat jiaozi, a kind of dumplings with meat and vegetable stuffing.

The Double Ninth Festival 重阳（亦称重九）(the 9th day of the 9th lunar month)

On this day, also called Chongyang Festival, people customarily climb up mountains and appreciate chrysanthemums. It is also the festival for the old and a time for family get-togethers.
As a famous Chinese saying goes: On festive occasion more than ever we think of our dear ones far away. 每逢佳节倍思亲。

The Dragon Boat Festival 龙船节或五龙节(the 5th day of the 5th lunar month)

Also called Duanwu Festival亦称端午节，most people say that the day is held in remembrance of Qu Yuan (c.340-c.278 BC), a great patriotic poet of Chu State in the Warring States period (475-221 BC) who committed suicide in the Miluo River, Hunan Province 大都认为是悼念投湖南汨罗的战国时楚国爱国诗人屈原；others argue that the ancient Yue people held sacrifices to the dragon totem 古越人举行的龙图腾祭俗；still others narrate that the festival has been evolved from the Summer Solstice in the Xia (2070-1600 BC), Shang (1600-1046 BC), and Zhou (1046-256 BC) dynasties 由夏、商、周的夏至节演变而来的。People eat zongzi, a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in reed leaves, compete in dragon boat races, cleanse their homes by putting up the leaves of mugwort (Artemisia argyi) 插艾（别称家艾、艾嵩）or cattail on either side of the door, spray realgar water晒雄黄 in the room, and drink realgar wine饮雄黄酒 (traditionally drunk during the Dragon Boat Festival to get rid of calamities and prevent poisonous creatures避瘟逐疫).

The Lantern Festival 灯节（亦称上元节）(the 15th of the first lunar month)

Also called Yuanxiao亦称元宵节Festival, it is the climax of the Spring Festival. On the night of the Lantern Festival, people go out to parks and other places to view the often very intricate lanterns, figure out the lantern puzzles, and eat yuanxiao, a kind of small round dumplings made of glutinous rice flour containing sweet fillings.

The Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节（俗称团圆节）(the 15th day of the 8th lunar month)

It is a time for family reunions, symbolized by the full moon, which appears to be bigger and brighter than it is at any other time of the year, and moon cakes. It is traditional to eat moon cakes on the day drink wine fermented with osmanthus flowers and enjoy the moon at night 吃中秋月饼、饮桂花酒、赏月为乐。
It is also called the Calamus Festival (the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, on which calamus leaves used to be hung at the door ward off evil spirits).

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