Dear friends,

in our 'Deutsch Lernen' forum we got some interesting messages about celebrating Xmas in Argentina, thanks YO, and in Peru, thanks Leo.

I kindly ask all of you to let us know something about your home countries, about Xmas, or if you have another religion, about comparable customs. Write in English, German or Spanish or in 2 languages, that all of us can learn and know more about you and your 'Heimat'.

This is really fascinating :-)

Have a nice evening
Detlef

Thank the kind help of Detlef I am able to join your nice forum as a new comer.

I would like to introduce you something about the tradition of the Chinese "Xmas" - The Spring Festival.

The Chinese are celebrating „Spring Festival“(Frühlingsfest) instead of Xmas. The date of the Spring Festival is calculated according to the lunar calendar. It varies each year and is usually at the end of January or beginning of February according to the public calendar.

At the end of the lunar year, the Chinese makes their indoors and outdoors of their homes, clothes and all utensils very clean and prepare lots of delicious food. “Toufu”(bean curd) and fishes are necessity on the dining table because they are pronounced the same as “rich” in the Chinese language. While eating these, people have wishes of being rich in the coming year. People in the north prefer to eat “Jiao Zi”(ähnlich wie Mauertasche) which is said to be able to bring luck.

On the evening of the last day of the lunar year, all family members are coming back home from far away or nearby to celebrate this family festival. People enjoy a big dinner while watching a special spring festival TV program organised by the China Central Television (CCTV). Due to the big watching rate on this day (96% on 2003 according to the report of the Xin Hua News Agency= more than 1,2 billion people), most of the stars who performed on this program are becoming famous just over one night.

At exactly 12 hour in the mid-night, the whole China is surrounded by fireworks’ sound. It is a tradition succeeded from the old dynasties. Fireworks are believed to be able to drive the wicked ghosts or evil spirits away. In consideration of the air and sound pollution, some big cities are not allowed to burn fireworks in recent years.

Waking up in the morning of the New Year, children find their news clothes and new shoes surrounding them. They get pocket money packed in red envelopes from their parents or grandparents after greeting them with a simple word “Happy New Year”. It is one of the happiest days for a child because it is the simplest way of earning lots of pocket money. They go together with their parents and visit the neighbourhood, colleagues, friends and relatives of their parents and would get many candies, nuts and delicious things. Adults are inviting each other for dinners or paying visits.

Dragon dance would be performed in the following days. Various hand made lanterns, huge or small, are exhibited at the centre of each city. Some lanterns could be more than 10 meters high. The arts and techniques are combined in a perfecting way on the lanterns. Some are made with riddles on them. The winners who get the answers for the riddles would be encouraged with small gifts. The spring festival will be ended with the end of the Lantern Festival.

The spring festival of this year will be on the 22nd of January, 2004. Chinese people living abroad could only watch the online TV and make phone calls home.

If you have any other questions about China, I would like to help and answer you if I can.

Gruss

moon

Hi moon,

thanks a lot for this message! This is really interesting and I hope, that you can manage to go home on the 22nd next month.

Next time, when I visit my doctor (she is a Chinese woman, too), I will impress her with my new knowledge about her home country :-)

Come on friends, give us some more of this kind of stories!
Detlef