Lunar New Year 2012 – Get Complete Details of Chinese New Year Celebration

There are many different traditions of celebrating New Year in different countries, yet the fervor and the intensity remains almost same all over. While some countries like United States of America and France hold parades in order to eulogize the occasion. While Chinese and Spanish people like to have a family dinner and then going out for celebrations, natives of Brazil enjoy New Year jubilations at street with colorful props. Making loud noises, having festive food and singing and dancing on jolly tunes is certainly the highlight of the day in any country across the world. Chinese New Year, which is also known as spring festival is one of the most important traditional holidays. This festival starts on the first day of the first months of the Lunar month in the Chinese calendar and end on the fifteenth day. The last day of the festival is also called “Lantern festival”.

The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. In order to “catch up” with the solar calendar the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven years out of a 19-year cycle) much like we add an extra day on leap year. Because of this, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year.

The Chinese lunar calendar is structured to represent the 12 different animals and represents the cyclical nature of time, synchronizing with the moons natural cycles as opposed to the Western Linear concept of time. Although the Chinese make use of the Western calendar, the lunar calendar is still used for festive occasions and is used extensively as part of Chinese Astrological formats and calculations. The New Years celebration ushers in the New Year and is a time of celebration to welcome the new zodiac year. For the Chinese culture, compatibility, matchmaking and luck cycles are heavily linked to a person’s astrological animal symbol. An Australian lunar gold coin is an ideal Chinese New Year gift for anyone born in the relevant animal year or as a special token to bring wealth, health and happiness.

The Chinese New Year is being celebrated by pasting New Year pictures. The main objective of pasting these is to please children ands also to promote the traditional Chinese values of hard work and integrity. This way, the children from a very young age gets to learn about their cultures and also their duties. Such pictures are based on various themes, subjects and ideas. There is no particular place for making those crafts. All over the country is engaged in this profession and is being practiced from the ancient times.

Chinese New Year is not just a festival of fun and part, but also a time to welcome the new season, pray for prosperity and well being and cleanse away the any thing evil.

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New Year – Get Complete Details of Chinese New Year 2012 And Get Free Weekly Horoscopes

For the Chinese, this 2012 is the Year of the Rabbit, which effectively starts on the Saturday of February 14. This is the time when millions of overseas Chinese will go back home to their families to spend the holiday and have a wonderful dinner together. This is a time when every China town all over the globe will be filled with much merrymaking, dramatic fireworks, dancing dragons, singing gongs, and happy smiles.

No doubt, the Chinese New Year is the most important holiday in history for Chinese calendar, with the celebration taking as long as 15 days. Even people who don’t have Chinese blood in them have come to celebrate and respect this holiday. Every year, Chinese spend lavishly on these performance arts in the hopes of bringing good luck and prosperity.

The Spring Festival is the most important and traditional festival for Chinese, because it starts from the beginning of spring. People will hold this festival at the last day of every year which is called New Years Eve. People will keep vigil, and all the members of a family will hold together to have a big dinner on that night. It means the old year has already past and after people make a conclusion for the year, they hope to have a new and different year next.

And just as the New Year is a time when they spend thousands on food and fireworks and gifts, it is also a high time consulting their fate in Chinese horoscopes and astrology. Chinese people, after all, are among the most superstitious people in the world. Superstitions, in fact, abound during the Chinese New Year itself, both before and during the holiday. On the days before the celebration, Chinese families spend their time cleaning their houses to sweep away the bad luck for the coming New Year. On the holiday eve, buying a pair of shoes is considered bad luck, since according to them the word “shoes” is a homophone for the word “rough” in Cantonese. Eating candy, on the other hand, brings good luck in a way that their coming year will become sweet.

The Chinese Horoscope cycle is enhanced with the divisions of the twelve Chinese horoscope signs that are represented by twelve carefully chosen animals. These are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. The animals where not selected by luck, but each one of them is highly associated with the human culture and way of life. There’s also a legend that explains in detail how the 12 animals where selected. According to the scriptures, the Chinese god of earth conducted a race between all the animals on planet earth. The first twelve animals would represent the twelve astrological signs. The twelve Chinese Horoscope signs shape the twelve-year cycle. When the year-cycle ends, a new one begins by repeating itself.

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