Mei He

 

China is a very large country; different places have different culture and custom. I lived on the south of China. There are many interesting customs in my hometown. I think that superstitions in New Year are interesting for me in my hometown..

            The Chinese New Year is the last day of December of the lunar calendar. The eve of New Year, people must clean their houses thoroughly. This means that the family’s bad luck will be cleaned. If you owe other people money, you should try to return. If you owe debt New Year before, people think that they will have debt the next year. Children also must buy new clothes to wear in the New Year. And in many homes, people burn incense at home and in the temples to pay respects to ancestors and ask the gods for good health in the coming months.

After New Year, we visit relatives. We will buy some lucky things as gift for our friends. But we never buy clock as New Year gifts because the Chinese words for “sending clocks” sound almost the same as “sending you to your grave.” Therefore, clocks are sinister gifts. Especial when you visit olds, the clock absolutely can’t buy as gift.

The best interesting is to people choose the number. In Chinese culture, “8”is luck’s number because “8”is "fa" sounds almost the same as 'to strike rich’. Therefore, children get money is number “8” or “80” in New Year. But people don’t like number “4” because “4” is “si” in China; it sounds the same as “die. Therefore, people don’t like to visit friends in date 4 every month.

The New Year is the most a holiday in China. Superstitions in the New Year are people very interesting because it represents Chinese a culture.