Ch 24 · Lesson 25Mandarin · Chapter 24 · Lesson 25 · Themed review
The Spring Festival
The reunion dinner, red envelopes and the upside-down 福 (fú). The night that matters is New Year's Eve, 夕 (chúxī), not the day itself.
Practise this lesson
20-word session
A quick mix of exercises - recognise, recall, type and build each word. Miss one and it comes back round until it sticks.
Worth knowing
The night before the New Year is the big one
The biggest holiday in the Chinese-speaking world is 春节 (Chūnjié), the Spring Festival, which English calls Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year. It follows the lunar calendar, so it moves about: it always lands between 21 January and 20 February.
The eve is the night that counts
The evening everyone travels for is 除夕 (chúxī), New Year's Eve. Families sit down together for the reunion dinner, 年夜饭 (niányèfàn), and getting 回家 (huí jiā), home, in time for it is the point of the whole holiday. That is why the weeks around it are the busiest of the year on the 火车 (huǒchē), the trains.
So if you say 今天是春节 (jīntiān shì Chūnjié) over the reunion dinner, you are a day early. That evening is 除夕 (chúxī); the Spring Festival itself is the next morning.
What happens
| What | In Mandarin | |
|---|---|---|
| the reunion dinner | 夜 (niányèfàn) | in the north, families make (jiǎozi) and eat them at midnight |
| the red envelope | (hóngbāo) | money in a (hóng), red, envelope, given by the married members of the family to the younger ones, mostly children and teenagers |
| the TV gala | (Chūnwǎn) | state television's variety show on New Year's Eve, broadcast every year since 1983 |
| firecrackers | (biānpào) | the old story is that a beast called (nián) was afraid of noise and of the colour red |
| the end | 宵 (Yuánxiāojié) | the Lantern Festival, on the fifteenth day, closes the season |
Why the 福 (fú) is upside down
On doors all over the country you will see the character 福 (fú), good fortune, hung upside down. That is not a mistake. It is a pun built from two words you already know:
| (dào) | upside down | 福 (fú dào le): the fortune is upside down |
| (dào) | to arrive | 福 (fú dào le): good fortune has arrived |
Same sound, same tone. Mandarin has far fewer syllables than English, so sounds like this are shared constantly, and the culture has made a habit of playing with them. The numbers session in chapter 28 is built on the same trick.
What to say
| Say | Meaning | When |
|---|---|---|
| (xīnnián kuàilè) | Happy New Year | the safe one, all season |
| (guònián hǎo) | Happy New Year | the everyday spoken greeting |
| 财 (gōngxǐ fācái) | wishing you prosperity | literally congratulations, get rich; children say it hoping for a (hóngbāo) |
Most of that is already yours: 新 (xīn) is new, 年 (nián) a year, 快乐 (kuàilè) happy, 过 (guò) to pass or spend time and 恭喜 (gōngxǐ) congratulations. Only 发财 (fācái) is new.