My Chinese New Year Stories

Celebrating Spring Festival in China

Source: China Daily
2016-02-29

A foreign student runs out of a school building of Harbin Normal University. [Photo/China Daily]

I have a Chinese name Dan Na and I'm from Burundi, studying in Harbin Normal University.

I feel lucky to talk about how international students celebrate Chinese New Year here. I don’t have much knowledge about the festival, but I do know that Spring Festival is one of China’s popular traditional holidays.

It falls on the 1st day of the lunar calender and marks the beginning of China’s New Year. Chinese people really value the holiday. They start to clean the rooms, prepare the food and write couplets one week before the holiday. During Spring Festival, children bai nian, or give New Year greetings, to adults and in return they get some yasuiqian, or lucky pocket money.

At New Year’s Eve, both adults and children stay up late and make dumplings, chatting and having get-together reunion dinners. I saw the word Fu --- good luck --- on doors many times and I got to know that people in different parts of China celebrate the New Year in different ways.

During Spring Festival, people set off firecrackers everyday. But fewer people did it this year compared with last year. I think that’s because people care more about the environment. For the first time, I joined a party to celebrate the New Year in China. There was good food and drink. People greeted each other and it was very interesting. I want to tell the story to more of my friends in Burundi.