The spring weather is warm, and the year of pig is coming. In the twinkling light of the candle, a new year is beginning.Let’s drink freely with great joviality on today’s banquet. The winter is not that cold with your companion.China Brand Value Network(www.bvrcn.com)  wish everyone a prosperous and harmonious family, good luck, healthy and a happy Chinese New Year’s eve.

How much do you know about the custom on the day of the Chinese New Year’ eve?

Long from the ancient China, there have been customs such as staying up late or all night on Chinese New Year’s Eve, putting up spring festival’s couplet, door god pictures and other paintings  on doors, lanterns, which have been passed down to the present and influenced by Chinese culture. 

1. Putting on Spring Festival couplets

According to the law, the last word of the first line must be a oblique tone word (the falling-rising and falling tone in Mandarin), and last line be the first and second tone(the level and rising tone in Mandarin).  And when the couplets are attached, facing outside of the door, we should put the first line on the right side of the door, and the last line on the left.There is a fairy tale: the new year couplet is actually transformed from the immortals in heaven, when the couplet is torn up the immortal will go to heaven to report to the God about what happened in this family. People wish the immortal could bring good luck for families on the earth.Therefore, it is best to put up the Spring Festival couplets between 6 and 12 am on the New Year’s Eve day , tearing the old Spring Festival couplet, indicating that the bad luck is broken and ringing out the old, ringing in the new.

2. Dust-sweeping  

The lunar New Year’is the last day of 2018. We clean the inside and outside of the house, and with only clean house, the good luck and longevity immortals can enjoy and stay.  Sweeping the house from the inside to the outside of the house. For instance, entering from the main gate, then clean from the most inside room to other rooms, until to the main gate. The garbage should be cleaned outside of the entire house at the final stage.Not that the garbage on the New Year’s Eve or things good-for-nothing must be thrown away and can’t be left in the house overnight. The first day of the lunar New Year start from 11 pm of last night, from that moment any sweeping is not allowed.

3. Ancestor worship 

The first major event on the lunar New Year’s Eve is to worship ancestors.  In many places of our country, on this day, people will prepare opulent meals at home, ignite incense sticks, and parents will lead the children to bow down the elders and seniors.People in rural areas of the North will also burn paper money at home. At dusk of the lunar New Year’s Eve, people will ignite incense sticks , pour nice wine, place nice dish in front of ancestors’ photos. All family members gather to conduct the ancestor worship ceremony to express the feeling of “let there be a careful attention to perform the funeral rites to parents” from Confucian Analects.After the ancestors finished their meal, people then can start to enjoy theirs.

4. The dinner for the night of the New Year’s Eve should be prepared in even numbers.

This dinner should include twelve dishes which containing four cold dishes and eight hot dishes.  The four cold dishes are called Siping, and the eight hot dishes are called Bawen, which means that everything is smooth,stable and without any problem.However, the size of nowadays family has become smaller, more and more families choose ten dishes instead of twelve for the dinner. They can be made into six hot and four cold, which means everything goes well and everyone is safe and healthy in the four seasons of the coming year.

5. Staying up all night on lunar New Year’s Eve 

People eat food with auspicious implied meaning, such as dumplings(gold ingot), tangyuan(family reunion), longan, red dates, peanut and so on.  And on the evening of the lunar New Year’s Eve, people better sleep after 0 o’clock in the morning, and it is not recommended to sleep earlier than this time.It’s auspicious to sleep only after 0 o’clock. For elders and seniors, staying up all night on lunar New Year’s Eve means cherishing the time; for young people, it means to extend parents’ longevity.