Chinese festivals
Spring festival is the most inportant traditional chinese festival. The spring festival is the Chinese new year. The origin of this festival is centuries old. A number of myths and traditions underline the significance of this Chinese new year. This marks the end of winter and lasts for 15 day. The 15th day is the Lantern festival.
The Lantern festival is also known as Yuanxiao or Shangyuan Festival. This is the last day of Chinese new year celebrations. During the Lantern Festival, children go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns. They also solve riddles on the lanterns. In Singapore, a festival with the same name is celebrated, but different from the one which chinese celebrate. The lanterns were fairly simple in ancient times. Nowadays, lanterns have been being embellished with many complex designs. They are often made in shapes of animals. The lanterns symbolizes the people letting go of their past selves and getting a new one, which they will let go of the next year. It is also said that this is observed to worship Taiyi, the god of heaven.
Qingming denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime. This falls in the month of april. Chinese people visit the graves or burial grounds of their ancestors. This tradition stretches back to more than 2,500 years. A popular thing to do is to fly kites. These kites are in the shapes of animals or characters from Chinese opera.
This festival holiday has a significance in the Chinese tea culture. This specific day divides the fresh green teas by their picking dates. Green teas made from leaves picked before this date are given the prestigious ‘pre-qingming’ designation which commands a much higher price tag.
