All entries for Friday 05 January 2007

Introduction of Chinese New Year

第一篇
Prepare for the Chinese New Year
It’s about one and a half month away from the Chinese New Year, It is a festival celebrated by the Chinese people at the beginning of the lunar calendar year.

As of the Chinese traditional customs, our parents and grandparents will sweep every corner of the house and clean the windows until they gleam, and washing clothes, buying foods and goods for the new year’s future use and presents.

Children will be the most benefited group during this feast period. One month before that, they are expecting the new clothes, delicious foods. The firecrackers and the year’s allowance for their increased ages.

In recent years, with the rising of the standard of life, Chinese tend to make various holiday plans to spend a different and meaningful new year. Such as traveling abroad, or be absorbed in their hobbies, and even work.

Why today we try to spend our Chinese new year in such a different way? I think that’s because this is a era of free life and personality high-ranking. Though there are still something traditional, our young generation is attempting to make something new and suitable for ourselves. And we would like to take something really worth to be cherished in our memorable treasures. That’s amazing and wonderful!

I’ll always keep in mind that the Chinese new year is a great feast inherited from our ancestors, but if necessary, I would like to enjoy it by some ways personal.

第二篇
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is a Chinese traditional festival. We also call it the Spring Festival. It is on lunar January 1st.

On New Year’s Eve, all the people sit around the desk and have a big family dinner. There are some vegetables, some fish, some meat, some fruits and some drink like juice, Coke, Pepsi and some nice wine. Overall, this is a good and delicious dinner. After dinner, we always watch TV New Year progammes. We have a wonderful evening on New Year’s Eve.

On the first day of the Spring Festival, most of people get up early and say “happy new year” to each other. For breakfast, people often eat dumplings and baozi. After breakfast, people often make many delicious foods, and children often play cards, computer games and fireworks. On the second and third day, we visit friends and relatives.

Everyone is busy on Chinese New Year, and everyone is happy, too.

第三篇
Traditions of Chinese New Year
Before New Year’s Eve

The celebration actually starts on New Year’s Eve with the family reunion dinner. By New Year’s Eve, you should have done the following:

Clean the entire home to get rid of all the things that are associated with the old year.
Put away all brooms and brushes.
Pay all your debts.
Resolve differences with family members, friends, neighbors and business associates.
Buy the following:
Red money envelopes,
Oranges and/or tangerines,
Fill a “Cheun hup(a circular red tray separated in eight compartments) with melon seedslotuschocolate coinsnuts etc.
Flowers (especially plum blossoms, peach blossoms, water lilies),
A new set of clothes and shoes for children, preferably something red or orange.
Get new dollar bills from the bank. Insert the new dollar bills into the red envelopes. Now the red envelope is called a lai see or lucky money envelope.

On New Year’s Eve

Get together with close family members (not including married daughters and their families) for the “reunion” dinner.

Pay respect to ancestors and household gods. Acknowledge the presence of ancestors because they are responsible for the fortunes of future generations.
Open every door and window in your home at midnight to let go of the old year.

On New Year’s Day
Decorate your home with symbols of good fortune. Here are some suggestions:

Colors: Bright red (happiness); gold/orange (wealth & happiness).
Fruits: Oranges and tangerines (good health & long life); tangerines with leaves intact (long lasting relationships; being fruitful and multiply); persimmons (happiness and wealth).
“Chuen Hup” circular candy tray (candy for sweet and circular for togetherness and continuity).
Flowers: If flowers bloom on New Year’s Day, it will be a prosperous year.
Red banners or couplets with New Year wishes and symbols of good fortune in gold.

第四篇
Spring FestivalThe Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together, just like Christmas in the West. All people living away from home go back, becoming the busiest time for transportation systems of about half a month from the Spring Festival. Airports, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded with home returnees.

The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, often one month later than the Gregorian calendar. It originated in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC-c. 1100 BC) from the people’s sacrifice to gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one.

Strictly speaking, the Spring Festival starts every year in the early days of the 12th lunar month and will last till the mid 1st lunar month of the next year. Of them, the most important days are Spring Festival Eve and the first three days. The Chinese government now stipulates people have seven days off for the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Many customs accompany the Spring Festival. Some are still followed today, but others have weakened.

On the 8th day of the 12th lunar month, many families make laba porridge, a delicious kind of porridge made with glutinous rice, millet, seeds of Job’s tears, jujube berries, lotus seeds, beans, longan and gingko.

The 23rd day of the 12th lunar month is called Preliminary Eve. At this time, people offer sacrifice to the kitchen god. Now however, most families make delicious food to enjoy themselves.

After the Preliminary Eve, people begin preparing for the coming New Year. This is called “Seeing the New Year in”.

Store owners are busy then as everybody goes out to purchase necessities for the New Year. Materials not only include edible oil, rice, flour, chicken, duck, fish and meat, but also fruit, candies and kinds of nuts. What’s more, various decorations, new clothes and shoes for the children as well as gifts for the elderly, friends and relatives, are all on the list of purchasing.

Before the New Year comes, the people completely clean the indoors and outdoors of their homes as well as their clothes, bedclothes and all their utensils.

Then people begin decorating their clean rooms featuring an atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity. All the door panels will be pasted with Spring Festival couplets, highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper. The content varies from house owners’ wishes for a bright future to good luck for the New Year. Also, pictures of the god of doors and wealth will be posted on front doors to ward off evil spirits and welcome peace and abundance.

The Chinese character “fu” (meaning blessing or happiness) is a must. The character put on paper can be pasted normally or upside down, for in Chinese the “reversed fu” is homophonic with “fu comes”, both being pronounced as “fudaole.” What’s more, two big red lanterns can be raised on both sides of the front door. Red paper-cuttings can be seen on window glass and brightly colored New Year paintings with auspicious meanings may be put on the wall.

People attach great importance to Spring Festival Eve. At that time, all family members eat dinner together. The meal is more luxurious than usual. Dishes such as chicken, fish and bean curd cannot be excluded, for in Chinese, their pronunciations, respectively “ji”, “yu” and “doufu,” mean auspiciousness, abundance and richness. After the dinner, the whole family will sit together, chatting and watching TV. In recent years, the Spring Festival party broadcast on China Central Television Station (CCTV) is essential entertainment for the Chinese both at home and abroad. According to custom, each family will stay up to see the New Year in.

Waking up on New Year, everybody dresses up. First they extend greetings to their parents. Then each child will get money as a New Year gift, wrapped up in red paper. People in northern China will eat jiaozi, or dumplings, for breakfast, as they think “jiaozi” in sound means “bidding farewell to the old and ushering in the new”. Also, the shape of the dumpling is like gold ingot from ancient China. So people eat them and wish for money and treasure.

Southern Chinese eat niangao (New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) on this occasion, because as a homophone, niangao means “higher and higher, one year after another.” The first five days after the Spring Festival are a good time for relatives, friends, and classmates as well as colleagues to exchange greetings, gifts and chat leisurely.

Burning fireworks was once the most typical custom on the Spring Festival. People thought the spluttering sound could help drive away evil spirits. However, such an activity was completely or partially forbidden in big cities once the government took security, noise and pollution factors into consideration. As a replacement, some buy tapes with firecracker sounds to listen to, some break little balloons to get the sound too, while others buy firecracker handicrafts to hang in the living room.

The lively atmosphere not only fills every household, but permeates to streets and lanes. A series of activities such as lion dancing, dragon lantern dancing, lantern festivals and temple fairs will be held for days. The Spring Festival then comes to an end when the Lantern Festival is finished.

China has 56 ethnic groups. Minorities celebrate their Spring Festival almost the same day as the Han people, and they have different customs.

Jiao Liu : 05 Jan 2007 20:28 |  Tags: Englishstudy |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

情人节英语

Valentine’s Day 情人节

Date 约会

Bunch 花束

Rose 玫瑰

Candy 糖果

Chocolate 巧克力

Forget-Me-Not 勿忘我

Puppy Love/First Love 初恋

Cute Meet 浪漫的邂逅

Fall In Love 坠入爱河

Love At The First Sight 一见钟情

Propose 求婚

Valentine Cards 情人节卡片

Candlelight Dinner 烛光晚餐

Heart-Shaped/Cordate 心形的

Truelove 真爱

Enamored 倾心的

Saint Valentine’s Day 情人节

The Chemical Feeling 奇妙的感觉，触电

Sweet Bitterness 甜蜜的痛苦

A Doomed Couple 天生一对

A Happy Ending 大团圆结局

Sweetheart 甜心

Lover 爱人

Cupid 爱神丘比特

Admirer 仰慕者

Romance 浪漫

Heartthrob 激情

Courtship 求爱

Infatuation 醉心

Promise/Pledge/Vow 誓言

Fidelity 忠心

Eternal/Immortal/Everlasting 永恒

Jiao Liu : 05 Jan 2007 19:17 |  Tags: Englishstudy Goodarticles |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem