Chinese New Year is regarded as the biggest festivals celebrated in the multi cultural civilization of China also known as Spring festival. Chinese New Year Day is the new moon day of the first lunar month. The new moon time of the first lunar month is at 20:40 p.m. of February 8, 2016 in China Standard Time. It will be year 4714 on the Chinese Calendar. 2016 is a RED FIRE Monkey year.

The 12 animals were chosen deliberately, after many revisions. The zodiac animals are either closely related to ancient Chinese people’s daily lives, or have lucky meanings.The ox, horse, goat, rooster, pig, and dog are six of the main domestic animals raised by Chinese people. The other six animals: rat, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, and monkey are all loved by the Chinese people.

Chinese Zodiac Origins — Why 12 Animals?

The Chinese animal zodiac, is a repeating cycle of 12 years, with each year being represented by an animal and its reputed attributes. Traditionally these zodiac animals were used to date the years.Story of the Chinese ZodiacThe story of the Chinese Zodiac is a classic legend. The Jade Emperor, ruler of the heavens decided to figure out a way for Chinese people to measure time. So he called on all the animals in the kingdom for the Great Race!

Customs and Activities of Chinese New Year

Chine New Year (CNY) celebrations starts with a reunion dinner on the eve of CNY. This is where family members get together, no matter where they are in the country or the world, and sit down for the most important meal of the year. Reunion dinner is always celebrated at home but in recent years, more and more families tend to have their reunion dinner in a good restaurant.After dinner, true to the Chinese nature, playing cards and mahjong tiles will appear and a gambling session amongst family members will start. Once the clock strikes twelve, this is where you will hear firecrackers and fire works being fired off everywhere. The firecrackers mark the official start of CNY.In recent years, the Chinese government has clamped down on firecrackers and fireworks in the cities because of fire hazards. Today, the lighting of fireworks is most likely to happen in the villages and countryside only.Chinese New Year is celebrated with visiting of relatives and friends. Junior members of the family will need to visit senior or elderly members of th family. Everyone is expected to wear new clothes and shoes and the popular color is obviously RED or anything bright! There is always good food and drinks and children are rewarded with red packets or 'hong-pow' from adults. These red packets will contain money and is a major source of 'wealth' for children for the rest of the year.Adults will chit-chat and catch up with one another. They are also likely to have gambling sessions with friendly stakes. Meantime, children will be having new year goodies, games and playing with fireworks.In cities there will be displays of dragon and lion dance, acrobats, traditional chinese dance and songs, stilt walkers, Chinese Opera, wushu performances and other traditional chinese performances.In the olden days, festivities will last for 15 days while today, most people will celebrate for 3-4 days and spend the rest of time at home. Most other Asian cities outside of China merely celebrate for two days.can read more there

In China is a popular legend about the coming of the Spring Festival. In oral Chinese, we call Spring Festival “Guo Nian”. Guo means "pass over" and Nian means "year“

Nian is a monster with a Lion’s head and big mouth. Every single living things would be eaten by Nian. This fierce monster makes people very afraid. Nian usually terrorize the people and animals on the 30th Day of the 12th months of each year (Chinese Calendar). The villagers would live in terror over the Winter, but over time they learned that the ferocious Nian was afraid of three things: the colour red, fire, and noise. So when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. From then on, Nian never came to the village again.The last day is called Nian Guan which means “Monster Gate”.

Myths of Chinese New Year

Is there a traditional dress for Chinese New Year?

Traditionally, women wear cheongsam: an elegant tight fitting dress- lots of people will recognise the style. Men wear a Chang Pao: a brightly colored shirt. Both of the outfits are usually red, to ward off evil spirits. People don’t wear traditional outfits as often these days, but part of the Chinese New Year tradition is to buy new clothes to welcome in the New Year and signify new beginnings. They usually wear bright colors and often still wear red.

What eat on Chinese New Year?Like Thanksgiving and Christmas, Chinese New Year is the time for family reunion. Each family celebrates the New Year’s Eve by having a big dinner together. In the dinner, normally fish will be served, which symbolizes good fortune for next year. Dumplings are the most important dish in Northern China and are usually served before midnight . They will be eating a selection of meat, seafood & vegetables. Normally you have a big feast, so there are lots of dishes to choose from. They usually have at least 7 – 8 dishes on the table during their meal.

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Yuan Xiao Yuan Xiao, also called as Tang Yuan (in southern areas, is a traditional food for both the first breakfast of New Year and the Lantern Festival. It is a kind of sweet dessert made of glutinous rice flour; fillings are normally the sesame and peanuts, sometimes also the vegetable or meat. It is made into round as round symbolizes the wholeness and unity in Chinese.

jiaozi.A popular food is ‘jiaozi’ which are dumplings boiled in water. These dumplings are prepared on New Years Eve and served right after midnight with garlic-soy sauce. A coin is often hidden in one of them. It is thought to be lucky to be the person who finds the coin.

jiaozi

Classic Chinese New year Recipes

Fireworks:At New Year’s Eve, people play firecrackers and fireworks at midnight after eating dumplings to welcome the first day of new year. It is a traditional practice to light fireworks, burn bamboo sticks and firecrackers and to make as much noise as possible to chase off the evil spirits as encapsulated by Nian.

FirecrackerA firecracker is a small explosive device primarily designed to produce a large amount of noise, especially in the form of a loud bang; any visual effect is incidental to this goal. They have fuses, and are wrapped in a heavy paper casing to contain the explosive compound. Firecrackers, along with fireworks, originated in China.

Dragon dances

Dragon dances are performed at New Year to scare away evil spirits. During the dance the performers hold poles and raise and lower the Dragon. Dragons are legendary animals, but they are important to Chinese people who think of dragons as helpful, friendly creatures. They are linked to good luck, long life and wisdom.

The Longest Dragon Dances 11 Minutes Guinness World Record

Dragons used in Dragon dances vary in length from a few metres to up to 100m long. Longer Dragons are thought to be more lucky than shorter ones. The dances can be performed either during the day or night, but at night a blazing torch will be carried to light the way.

LION DANCEThe Chinese Lion Dance is often confused with the Chinese Dragon Dance. They are both an important part of traditional Chinese festivities, specially Chinese New Year, and both are thought to bring good luck and scare away the evil spirits. During the Lion Dance, the lion will also embark on a “search for the greens”. The greens, typically, is a head of lettuce is sometimes suspended from a ceiling or doorway and the lion dancers must perform a lift to reach them. Once the lion has eaten the greens, the greens are thrown toward the audience to represent wealth and good fortune. Inside the lettuce, or greens, the lion may find a red envelope with money. This offering is a symbol of good luck and a reward for the lion for chasing away the evil spirits.In the old days, the lettuce was hung 5 to 6 metres above ground and only a well-trained martial artist could reach the money while dancing with a heavy lion head. These events became a public challenge. A large sum of money was rewarded, and the audience expected a good show. Lettuce Puzzle in Traditional Southern Chinese New Year Lion Dance

• The Northern Lion Dance

Northern dance was used as entertainment for the imperial court. The northern lion is usually red, orange, and yellow (sometimes with green fur for the female lion), shaggy in appearance, with a golden head. Northern lion dances are more gymnastic, involving rolling, wrestling, leaping, jumping, climbing, or kowtowing mainly performed as an entertainment. Lion dance is often performed by two people.

Northern lion dance Nothern Lion Dance Performance

Chinese lion dances can be broadly categorised into two styles, Northern and Southern.

The older, Southern Lion Dancing is the more traditional and is formed by ritual and custom. It is generally a more formalized style, with strict movements, but in current times, movements have been modified and refined to be more realistic. Performances are vivid and entertaining, even comical. There are also skillful performances, such as playing with a ball, which includes swallowing it.The Southern Lion is a symbol of strength and goodness. It is the spirit of change, the yang element and therefore symbolizes the cycle of life. The southern lion exhibits a wide variety of colours and has a distinctive head with large eyes, a mirror on the forehead, and a single horn at center of the head. The Southern Lion Dance is always performed by two performers and often in pairs of two lions.

Basically there are three types of lions : Golden lion - representing liveliness

Red lion - representing courage

Green lion - representing friendship Singapore's biggest ever lion dance

The Southern Lion Dance

Chinese Red Envelope

Red envelopes, also called red packets, lucky money, or hongbao in Chinese, are a popular monetary gift given on some important occasions or festivals in China.It is a Chinese New Year gift with money stuffed into red paper to kids. The red packets are usually presented by parents and grandparents to children during Chinese New Year, which is probably one of the most recognized traditions that are observed during the Festival.

How Much Money Goes Inside the Red Envelope?

It depends on the situation. There is great debate over how much to give. The amount of money in red envelopes given to children for Chinese New Year depends on age and the giver’s relationship to the child. For younger children, the equivalent of about $7 dollars is fine.More money is given to older children and teenagers.

Paper-cutting art

Paper-cutting is a piece of art that cut from red paper.

Most popular subjects are animals, human, flowers or the character of “Xi” means happiness.

Most paper-cutting were stick on windows, some are placed on the wall inside.

Lantern festival

The lantern festival is held on the 15 day of the first lunar month. Some of the lanterns may be works of art, painted with birds, animals, flowers, zodiac signs, and scenes from legend and history. People hang glowing lanterns in temples, and carry lanterns to an evening parade under the light of the full moon. Children go out in the streets at night with lanterns and people paste riddles onto lanterns so that visitors can guess the answers.The lantern used in Chinese New Year usually has red paper shell. Some lantern has candles inside for illustration but most are just made for decoration purpose. The lantern is usually hanging in front of the door or inside the house.In Latvia you can made usually cutting paper lantern.

Chun Lian: it so called antithetical couplet. It is a pair of lines of poetry usually hand written on the red paper pasted on the front door. The two lines correspond in their metrical length and some properties of each character, such as meaning and tone. The tradition of posting Chun Lian reflects the consistent inheritance of Chinese culture.

2016 is year of the Red Monkey Male Fire Monkey.

• 2016 is the 4713th Chinese Year. According to Chinese Horoscope calendar, the first day of Red Monkey is on February 4, 2016.

• This day is not the Chinese New Year Day. Most of Internet Chinese horoscope sites use Chinese New Year Day to determine the Chinese zodiac sign, which is wrong. Chinese New Year Day of Red Monkey Year is on February 8, 2016. This is the reason that some people confuse their Chinese zodiac signs.

• The first day of the Chinese astrological year is the first day of the Tiger Month (Start of Spring). The Tiger Month begins around February 4, each year.

• If you were born before February 4, then you should check Your Chinese Zodiac Sign first before reading your 2016 Chinese zodiac forecast.

• NEXT YOU CAN READ FORECASTS FOR THE YEAR OF THE MONKEY 2016

In The Year of the Monkey

The Luckiest Things for "Monkeys" Lucky numbers: 4 and 9 Lucky days: the 14th and 28th of any Chinese lunar

calendar month Lucky colors: white, blue, gold Lucky direction: north, northwest, west Lucky months: the 8th and 12th Chinese lunar months.

Things That "Monkeys" Should Avoid Unlucky colors: red, pink Unlucky numbers: 2 and 7 Unlucky direction: south, southeast Unlucky months: the 7th and 11th Chinese lunar months

Lucky Hours

In the Year of the Fire Monkey, the following hours will be fawourable for activities to become successful. Aside from the Monkey hours, the Snake, Dragon, Rat hours are also good to work in 2016. These animals are considered to be the friends of the Monkey in the Chinese Zodiac.

Monkey hours: 3 – 5 pm Dragon hours: 7 – 9 am Snake hours: 9 – 11 am Rat hours: 11 pm – 1 am

Lucky Flowers

the crape myrtle or crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica)

the chrysanthemum.

MONKEY LOVES EXTRAVAGANCE

Monkey 2016 is time to be fancy and treat yourself! And eat very well. Monkey, like Monkey’s buddies Rat and Dragon, adores fine dining and rich entertaining. Monkey aspire to be a dandy, and pays attention to the details of clothing. Looks matters to Monkey so upgrade your wardrobe. Monkey knows how to manipulate images. What we see is not always what we get. If this year you feel a Monkey-like tendency to “fake it ’til you make it” that’s fine. Just do not overspend. Instead, use Fire Monkey ingenuity to make your own good food, bath salts, perfume, your own clothing, or create whatever luxuries you want in your life. In risk-taking Fire Monkey year, it’s auspicious to do something you’ve never done before. At least travel to a new place, not the same old spot.

The Year of the Fire Monkey being propitious for regular money supply, it is also be the right time for 2016 for families and couples to reconsider their daily relationships and break the routine.

2016 is not for habits and negative energies are quickly repelled. The combination of Fire with the sign of the Monkey brings vitality and innovation to both business and personal relationships.

During 2016, political tensions are stronger as conservative governments and financial markets get a harder time. People and money are moving around the planet at an even faster rate, and only the most resourceful and risk-taking individuals amongst the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac are promised great success in 2016.

It's also perfect time for you to reconsider part of the organization of your social life, as some friends suddenly behave more bitter and jealous, leaving you disappointed and disengaged.

2016 still is a year of optimism, cheerfulness and happy family gatherings.

FORECASTS FOR THE YEAR OF THE MONKEY 2016

Jokes riddleabout monkeys

Why did the giant ape climbe up the side of the skyscraper?• (The elevator was broken!)

Where do chimps get their gossip?• (On the ape vine!)

What key won't open any door?• (A monkey!)

How do you catch a monkey?• (Climb a tree and act like a banana!)

How do monkeys get down the stairs?• (They slide down the banana-ster!)

Where does a 2,000 pound gorilla sit?• (Anywhere it wants!)

What do monkeys do for laughs?• (They tell jokes about people!)

Five little monkey jumped on the bed

LYRICS by JOE FALLON

OUR CHRISTMAS MONKEY

BETSYMy Aunt Margret said she knew Every Christmas carolSongs of holly, Santa, snow, And reindeer by the barrel

So I set out to find some unsung Christmas thingSo for her sake we would have a brand new carol to sing

Christmas monkey, Christmas monkeyNo one’s sung about Christmas monkeyChristmas monkey’s got no songIt’s been that way for much too long

Monkeys run, Monkeys climbMonkeys love Christmas timeJust ask George, the hairy one hereHe’s got spirit and monkey cheer

CAROLERSHe’s got spirit and monkey cheer

BETSYDon’t you think it’s timeI mean it’s like a crimeIt seems so very, very wrongA Christmas monkey needs a song!

Monkeys run, Monkeys climbMonkeys love Christmas timeJust ask George, the hairy one hereHe’s got spirit and monkety cheer

CAROLERSHe’s got spirit and monkety cheer

BETSYDon’t you think it’s timeI mean it’s like a crimeIt seems so very, very wrongA Christmas monkey needs a song!

ALLHarps are plunkySkunks are skunkyDonuts dunkyAn elephant’s trunkyBut there’s only one thing monkey Guess what that isGuess what that is, oh - oh

Christmas monkey, Christmas monkeyTime to sing of a Christmas monkeyLift your voices loud and strongThis is the Christmas monkey song!

Christmas monkey, Christmas monkeyDeck the halls with a Christmas monkeyLift your voices loud and strongThis is the Christmas monkey song!

Lift your voices loud and strongThis is the Christmas monkey song!

Traditional Beliefs for China New Year There are many beliefs and taboos associated with Chinese New Year. Some of these include:

No sweeping or housekeeping during Chinese New Year This is to avoid sweeping 'wealth' and 'health' out of the house Children cannot sleep on the eve of Chinese New Year It is believed that the longer children stay up late on CNY eve, the longer their parents will get to live Children cannot be scolded during Chinese New Year Parents will avoid scolding children during this period or back luck will fall on their children Only red or bright clothes can be worn during Chinese New Year

Chinese greetings for Chinese New YearThe most common festive greetings for Chinese New Year are:

"Zhu Ni Nian Nian You Yu" - Wishing you an abundant year

"Gong Xi Fa Cai" - Have a prosperous new year "Sing Nian Kuay Le" - Happy New Year.