Beijing City: Happy Spring Festival

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Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is also known as “Spring Festival”, since the spring season in Chinese calendar starts with lichun, the first solar term in a Chinese calendar year. It marks the end of the winter season, analogous to the Western Carnival. The festival begins on the first day of the first month in the traditional Chinese calendar and ends with Lantern Festival which is on the 15th day. Chinese New Year's Eve, a day where Chinese families gather for their annual reunion dinner, is known as Chúxī (除夕). Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar, the Chinese New Year is often referred to as the “Lunar New Year”.

Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese New Year vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly cleanse the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red color paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of “good fortune” or “happiness”, “wealth”, and “longevity”. On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will include such items as pigs, ducks, chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is to reconcile, forget all grudges and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.

The first ray of sun shines on the Chinese table of Tiananmen Square in the New Year's Day’s morning.

There were red lanterns hung in Beijing's streets and alleys, a happy and peaceful New Year.

Night lights in front of the street were exceptionally beautiful.

Night lights along the Wangfujing Street

With people's living standards improve, people are no longer only met each other at home on the New Year’s Day, but go to travel and enjoy life with the family in such holiday. On the second day of the Chinese New Year, there were tourists in Wangfujing Street, and the faces of adults and children were filled with smiles.

There are nearly 200 stalls in Dong Hua Men Night Market, which begin business from 4:30 pm. More than 500 kinds of famous snacks throughout the country gather here, such as lamb kebabs, purple rice, soybean milk, etc. as well as jelly, grilled rice cake, lotus porridge, sour plum, red cheese, almond tofu, kebabs, grilled lobster, grilled squid, fried grasshopper, fried scorpions, fried chrysalis, etc. Many foreign visitors to Beijing will go to Wangfujing have to taste characteristics of the delicious snacks.
New Year's Dawn in Lama Temple

In order to ensure the safety of tourists to the Lama Temple, motor vehicles were prohibited to cross the junction of the two sides Beixinqiao and Lama Temple Bridge on the New Year.

According to statistics, there were 70,000 people burning incenses in Lama Temple in Beijing by 17:30 on January 23.

The most distinctive activities in Beijing during the New Year was undoubtedly the Spring Festival temple fair, while Beijing's most historical and largest temple is the Ditan Temple, and this is the twenty-seventh.