In a snow-covered courtyard beneath plum branches and a perched magpie, two children play with a flying shuttlecock while red lanterns hang from the eaves and an elder pastes red couplets on the door.
Spring Festival
The year begins, and every family crosses into it together
Introduction
The first day of the lunar year, when the old year is seen out and the new one welcomed
The Spring Festival falls on the first day of the first lunar month, the start of the lunar new year, and is popularly called guonian, 'crossing the year'. Year-end sacrifices to gods and ancestors are very old, but it was the Taichu calendar of 104 BCE under Emperor Wu of Han that made the first month the start of the year, fixing the first day as New Year for all later dynasties. The celebrations run from preparations in the twelfth month to the Lantern Festival; at their core are the reunion and vigil on New Year's Eve, New Year calls on the first day, couplets, firecrackers and offerings to heaven, earth and ancestors. After the 1911 Revolution the day was renamed 'Spring Festival'; it stands for family reunion and hopes for good fortune in the new year.
Timeline
- 104 BCEOriginThe Taichu calendar of 104 BCE under Emperor Wu of Han made the first month the start of the year, fixing the first day as New Year; the Shiji and Hanshu call the day the 'four beginnings' and 'three mornings'.
History › Luoxia Hong and the Taichu Calendar
Literature › Records of the Grand Historian
Literature › Book of Han - 1147EvolutionThe Dongjing menghua lu (1147, on Northern Song Kaifeng) records that at the New Year festival the city allowed three days of gaming fairs; people exchanged greetings from early morning, and even the poor put on clean clothes and shared wine.Literature › Record of a Dream of Splendour in the Eastern Capital
- 1912EvolutionAfter the 1911 Revolution China adopted the Gregorian calendar and the first day of the lunar year was renamed 'Spring Festival', while the Beginning of Spring faded as a festival.
History › 1911 Xinhai Revolution - 2024ImpactListed in the first national intangible heritage batch in 2006; in 2024 'Spring festival, social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of traditional new year' was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List.
Heritage Listings
- 2006National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage1st batch · X-1 Spring Festival · no. 449 · nominated by the Ministry of Culture
- 2024UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity19.COM · Spring festival · social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of traditional new year