The Spring Festival is coming! La Mart Asian Supermarket will introduce you to this unique festival which is as important as Christmas.

What is Spring Festival?
The Chinese Version of the Zodiac
The custom and tradition

What is Spring Festival?

Spring Festival is commonly known as Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year or New Year's Day; different regions have their customary name to describe Spring Festival.

Spring Festival has a long history, evolving from ancient times when the festival was celebrated at the beginning of the year.

Everything is based on the sky, and people are based on their ancestors, so praying for the New Year and offering rituals to the sky and the ancestors is a way to repay the festival's origin.

The origin of the Spring Festival contains a profound cultural connotation and carries a rich historical and cultural heritage in its inheritance and development.

During the Spring Festival, various activities are held throughout the country to celebrate the New Year, with strong local characteristics.

These activities are mainly concerned with removing the outdated and bringing in the new, warding off evil spirits and disasters, worshipping the gods and ancestors, and praying for the New Year in various forms.

 

The Chinese version of the Zodiac:

The twelve zodiac signs, also known as zodiacal signs, are the twelve animals in China that match the twelve earthly branches to the year of a person's birth, including the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. 12 years a round, in China the zodiac sign is used to recognise people's age, occasionally.

This year (2023) is the Year Of Rabbit. The previous Year of Rabbit is 2011, 1999, 1987, and 1975... The future Year of Rabbit will be 2035, 2047, and 2059...

Now you can check the are you a rabbit?
The Rabbit is the fourth in the Chinese zodiac.
There is an interesting folk tale of a "rabbit and bull race": According to legend, the Rabbit and the Ox were neighbours who got on well and called each other brothers. The bull was a hard worker, and the rabbit was resourceful and capable, and they both made a good living.

One day, the rabbit, an excellent long-distance runner, boasted in front of the ox, "I am the long-distance running champion in the animal world; no one can beat me!" But the rabbit shook his head proudly and said, "You must be a long-distance runner to be a champion; you can't learn how to run. Besides, long-distance running requires a light body, and I'm afraid you'll never be able to run fast with your stout body."

The bull was so upset when the rabbit told him, but he was not convinced. Since then, the bull began to practice long-distance running, and with a tenacious bull strength, the bull finally developed a pair of "iron feet". With their tails cocked, their hooves are like the wind, and they do not get tired even after several days and nights.

When the Jade Emperor is to rank the Chinese zodiac signs, the rule is that whoever arrives first will be the Chinese zodiac sign. So the Ox and the rabbit agreed to get up the first time the rooster crowed and go straight to the Heavenly Palace to compete for the Chinese zodiac.

When the rooster crowed the first time, the rabbit was long gone when the Ox got up. So the rabbit ran for a while, but when he turned around, there was no sign of any animal. So the rabbit thought to himself, "I am the earliest riser and the fastest runner today, so if I get up after a good night's sleep, I will be the one to take the top spot in the Chinese zodiac. So he fell asleep in the grass.
The bull lagged, but with his hardy stamina and iron feet, he made a break for it and ran to the Palace of Heaven first while the rabbit was still sleeping soundly.
A rush of footsteps woke the rabbit, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was the tiger running past in a gust of wind, and now the rabbit was in a hurry to catch up, but unfortunately, he was a step too slow and always lagged behind the tiger. As a result, the rabbit only came fourth, with the top three being the rat, the ox, and the tiger.

Although the rabbit became the Chinese zodiac sign, it eventually felt ashamed to lose to its sarcastic old ox and returned and moved its home to a hole in the dirt. Finally, however, the rabbit does learn its lesson.

At this time, the sun has not yet shown its face, and the moon has not yet receded. Therefore, the Jade Rabbit is the only animal in the mythology of the Moon Palace.

The custom and Tradition

1. Like Christmas shopping, people also have spring festival shopping:

The Spring Festival culture has a long history and has given rise to various customs throughout the country, each with its characteristics from north to south. Although traditions vary from place to place, preparing New Year's Eve goods and gifts is a 'must' for almost all. For example, buying New Year's Eve goods, including food, clothes, clothing, gifts, and stickers, is called "New Year Shopping", an essential activity for the Chinese people.

2. New year Fortune Money

It is said that money can ward off evil spirits and that the younger generation will have a peaceful year if they receive it. In folk culture, money is said to ward off evil spirits and keep them at bay.

3. Traditional Food

The Rice Cake: Eating rice cakes during the Spring Festival "means that the year is better than the year so that we can pray for a better year." It means that everything will be as we wish it to be. There are different types of rice cakes: white cake and yellow rice cake in the north; water-ground rice cakes in the south; glutinous rice cakes in the southwest; and red turtle cakes in Taiwan. In the north, there are two types of rice cakes: steamed and fried, while in the south, in addition to steamed and fried, there are also slices of fried and boiled rice cakes in soup.

Dumplings: Eating dumplings is a unique way of expressing people's wishes for good fortune and luck as they welcome the new year. From 11 pm to 1 am, the next day is the time of the ZI, when the New Year and the Old Year meet. Therefore, the dumplings are considered a sign of good fortune as they are eaten during the Spring Festival.

Soup Dumplings(Yuan Xiao): The southern food of the Lantern Festival is called "dumplings", also known as "yuan xiao", "soup dumplings", and "floating dumplings". It is a traditional Chinese snack made of glutinous rice flour, etc. It is a ball-shaped food. They are usually filled and cooked and served with soup. It is also the most distinctive food of the Lantern Festival (the end day of the Spring Festival).

Spring Roll: Spring rolls are also called spring cakes; it is an old Chinese custom to eat them at the beginning of spring. In the Jin Dynasty, there were already "five taro plates", or "spring plates", in which spring cakes and vegetables were placed on the same plate. In the Tang and Song dynasties, the trend of eating spring cakes at the beginning of spring became more and more popular. The emperor gave them to his ministers and officials, and at that time, the spring plates were extremely elaborate: "green wisps of red silk, gold chickens and jade swallows, extremely delicate, each plate was worth 10,000 yuan". They were also used as gifts for each other.