Custom about Chinese New Year’s Eve–Chuxi

My dear friends, Chinese New Year is coming soon, we more like to call it Spring Festival -“春节（Chunjie）. It is the most important holiday for Chinese people. This is the excitement and happiness time of the year. Today, we are going to tell you some custom about Lunar New Year’s Eve-Chuxi, the last day of the year. Chuxi, in Chinese word ” 除夕”. On Chuxi Day, Chinese people will do the below things: 1. Sweeping the dust “Dust” is homophonic with “Chen”(尘) in Chinese, which means old and past. In this way, “sweeping the dust” before the Spring Festival means a thorough cleaning of houses to sweep away bad luck in the past year and welcome a new life. So every household will give a thorough cleaning to bid farewell to the old year and usher in the new.  2. Shopping for Spring Festival For thousands of years, Chinese people take the Spring Festival as a great events. Before Chuxi, people would make a special purchases for Spring Festival and buy lots of necessities including raw food, cooked food, seafood, candies, offerings, cloths , toy for children and so on. 3. Making Niangao（年糕） Niangao will be made one or two days before Chuxi. It is a kind of cake made of rice.  Since “糕”is homophonic with“高”（high）. So it stands for making progress every year. 4. Pasting Spring Couplets “The Spring Couplet” is a special form of literature in China. It is believed that the couplets has the function of warding off bad luck and disaster. The Spring Couplet is composed of two antithetical sentences on both sides of the door and a horizontal scroll bearing an inscription，usually an auspicious phrase，above the gate. The sentence pasting on the right side of the door is called the first line of the couplet and the one on the left the second line. On the eve of the Spring Festival, every household will paste on doors a spring couplet written on red paper to give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival. 5. Setting two pieces of sugarcane upright beside the door. In our Quanzhou City，except pasting spring couplet, we also set two pieces of sugarcane upright the both side of the our door. The sugarcane should be with root and be pasted red paper on it. They are called “门蔗”（Menzhe）in Chinese, which implies enter a wonderful place from the door. Above activities are just the preparation before Spring Festival. Then it comes to the activities on Chuxi. 6. Worship to the forefathers At noon of Chuxi, every house will put the cooked foods on the square table and put chairs on the east, west, and north side around the table. Then we will worship to our forefathers, which means that we invite them to have lunch. 7. Ushering the Kitchen God As is believed, the Kitchen God will be back from its working reporting to the lord of heaven. Thereby, at dusk, people will prepare delicious food and drink on the front of kitchen range and paste the new photo of Kitchen God. Then we prey for the Kitchen good to bless us to be safe and smooth in the coming year. 8. Reunion Dinner on Lunar New Year Eve Chinese people attach great importance on the reunion dinner on New Years Eve. The whole families sit around the table and enjoy the feast together. Even the members far away from home will return home in this important day. There are lot of delicious foods on table. The chopsticks on the table should be in even number and have the extra ones. These mean every year has enough to spend. The life will be richer and better in the coming year. The younger would toast to the elder families during the dinner. 9. Jumping Brazier It is a folk custom in Quanzhou. After the reunion dinner, the younger will pile the wood and make a fire on a open area. Then they jump over the fire, while the audience singing folk songs and cheer on for them. 10.  Staying Up Late on New Year‘s Eve and Watching CCTV New Year‘s Gala The tradition of staying up late to see New Year in originated from an interesting folk tale. In ancient China there lived a monster named Year, who was very ferocious. Year always went out from its burrow on New Year’s Eve to devour people. Therefore, on every New Year’s Eve，every household would have supper together. After dinner, no one dared go to sleep and all the family members would sit together, chatting and emboldening each other. Gradually the habit of staying up late on New Year’s Eve is formed. Thus in China, “celebrating the Spring Festival” is also called “passing over the year（guo nian）”. Recent decades, it forms to a custom that people will watch CCTV New Year‘s Gala on Chuxi night. It is a variety show held by China Central Television （CCTV） since 1983. The program begins at 8:00PM and lasts four hours. It brings laughter to billions of people, creates many popular words and produces lots of TV phenomena meriting attention. 11. Worship to the lord of heaven at midnight For people in Quanzhou City, apart from reunion dinner, the worship to the lord of heaven on Chuxi is also one of the most important events. When the clock strike at midnight, the elder will take the whole families to make a devoutly worship to the lord of heaven.There are various offerings put on the square table. People pray to the lord for blessing the whole family a safe and prosperous year. Blessing you a prosperous year. Thank you & Best Wishes,