Today, 2nd Feb (23rd of December in the Chinese lunar calendar) is the Xiǎo Nián Er, the “Little Chinese New Year”. From Xiǎo Nián Er，until the Lantern Festival, it will be 23-days Chinese New Year Time.
Here are 10 Chinese New Year hot words and phrases.
1. long nián， Dragon Year. This year is the year of the dragon. Note that it's not the year of the Dragon yet. The year of the dragon starts from the Chinese New year，which is the 10th of February.
2. xiǎo nián er, literally means "small year." Generally speaking, from the day of xiǎo nián er, people enter the Spring Festival period. However, in the north of China, xiǎo nián er is tomorrow. In the south, xiǎo nián er is the day after tomorrow.
3. chú xī， New Year's Eve. Its literal meaning is "the evening of change”，representing the night of change from the old year to the new year.
4. chūn jié， the Spring Festival, a festival of spring. On the eve of the Spring Festival, Chinese people eat dumplings, jiǎo zi. However, in many places in the south, people eat different things. We'll talk about that right away.
5. chūn jié, the Spring Festival is the first day of the lunar calendar, so you can't see the moon. 15 days later is the first full moon, which is also the 15th day of the lunar January. This day is called the Yuán xiāo jié，the Yuán xiāo festival. It is usually considered the last day of the Chinese New Year period.
Literally, yuán xiāo means "first-full-moon-night”, so Yuán xiāo jié, means the festival celebrating the first-full-moon-night. Actually, the Yuán xiāo jié always translated as “The Lantern Festival”, because people celebrate by hanging beautiful lanterns everywhere.
In ancient times, people didn't have much of a "night life," especially young girls, who basically had no chance to go out at night. But on the night of the Yuán xiāo jié, the lantern Festival, everyone, regardless of gender, can go out to enjoy the lanterns and have fun. So especially for young people, the Lantern Festival is also a romantic festival. Some people call the Yuán xiāo jié China's Valentine's Day, which makes sense too.
6. On the night of the Yuán xiāo jié, people in both northern and southern China eat a similar kind of food. It is made of sticky rice on the outside and usually has a sticky sweet filling inside, such as black sesame filling. It is always white and round, looks like the fullmoon. Northerners call this food "Yuanxiao", using the name of the festival to name it; southerners have another name for it, called Tangyuan, which is usually smaller than Yuanxiao. And in some places in the south, such as Shanghai, people will also eat Tangyuan during the Spring Festival Day.
Many foreigners eat this food were harmed, for if they take a fast and big bite, they will burn their mouths, by the melted sweet fillings.
We talked about food, let's talk about what we speak during Chinese New Year period.
The most commonly used New Year phrase is "Happy New Year", xīn nián kuài lè！
The second is a simpler "Happy New Year", guò nián hǎo！
The third is “gong xǐ fā cái”, literally means "Congratulations and wish you make big fortune.” You might have already heard it in Cantonese. In mandarin it is like this.
Let's go through these 10 words again.
1. Lónɡ Nián 2. xiǎo nián er 3. Chú Xī 4. Chūn Jié 5. Yuán Xiāo Jié
6. jiǎo zi 7. yuán xiāo, tang yuan 8. xīn nián kuài lè ！！ 9. ɡuò nián hǎo ！
10. ɡōnɡ xǐ fā cái ！
3 окт 2024
