In northern China, people traditionally eat dumplings and noodles, while in the south, Nian Gao (sticky rice cake) is a must-have, symbolizing rising fortunes. Wearing new red clothes on New Year’s Day symbolizes a fresh start and invites good luck. New clothes, especially for children, add excitement to the holiday. To protect themselves from the bad luck of their Ben Ming Nian, those born in the Year of the Horse are encouraged to wear red throughout 2026. In 2026, the cycle brings us to the Horse, the seventh animal in the zodiac order. Festivities include red decorations, elaborate meals, thorough cleaning of homes, and visiting family.

Ensemble pour une Suisse où tout le monde a son mot à dire

Buy yourself a Chinese-style coat, get your kids tiger-head hats and shoes, and decorate your home with some beautiful red Chinese knots, then you will have an authentic Chinese-style Spring Festival. In stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, and other cities, products of traditional Chinese style have started to lead fashion trends. Red couplets and red lanterns are displayed on the door frames and light up the atmosphere. For example, in 2013, New Year’s Eve (9 February) fell on a Saturday and New Year’s Day (10 February) on a Sunday. In 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, official Chinese New Year celebrations were banned in China.
The remaining 14 days are usually only celebrated by ethnic Chinese families. In Indonesia, the first day of the Chinese New Year is recognized as a national holiday. In Singapore, Chinese New Year is officially a two-day public holiday and is accompanied by various festive activities. George Town, a Chinese-majority city, is known for its lively Chinese New Year celebrations that last until the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day. Chinese New Year’s Eve is typically a half-day holiday in Malaysia, while Chinese New Year is a two-day public holiday.
The parade is attended by some 500,000 people, along with another 3 million TV viewers. They invited a variety of other groups from the city to participate, and they marched down what today are Grant Avenue and Kearny Street, carrying colourful flags, banners, lanterns, drums, and firecrackers to drive away evil spirits. In 1849, with the discovery of gold and the ensuing California Gold Rush, over 50,000 people came to San Francisco to seek their fortune or just a better way of life. The festival incorporates Grant and Kearny Streets into its street festival and parade route, respectively. The San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade is the oldest and one of the largest events of its kind outside of Asia, and one of the largest Asian cultural events in North America. Many communities throughout all of California celebrate with large celebrations taking place in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles, as well as in Fresno, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Rosa, and Stockton.
Families prepare food in advance since using sharp objects on New Year’s Day is considered unlucky. Arguments and anger are avoided to ensure harmony, and sweeping or cleaning on the first day is seen as inauspicious, as it is believed to brush away good fortune. Breaking objects is considered a bad omen and is thought to bring bad luck. Since the dragon is a Chinese symbol of good fortune, a dragon dance highlights festival celebrations in many areas. Celebrations to usher out the old year and bring forth the luck and prosperity of the new one often include firecrackers, fireworks, and red clothes and decorations.
One of the key celebrations is the Chinese New Year parade with floats and fireworks taking place along the streets in Chinatown, Manhattan, the largest Chinese New Year parade outside Asia. However, even smaller cities that are historically connected Ringospin Casino with Chinese immigration, such as Butte, Montana, have recently hosted parades. The common activities are the lion dance, dragon dance, New Year market, and food festival. The festival in Sydney is organized in partnership with a different Chinese province each year. The festival also attracts international media coverage, reaching millions of viewers in Asia.
(If you haven’t prepared your own “gou” yet, here’s an easy recipe for radish cake, a beloved Lunar New Year dish.) That means eating these treats is believed to lead to improvements and growth in the coming year. This is why wearing the fiery color, along with hanging banners and lighting firecrackers or fireworks, are Lunar New Year traditions, all of which are still followed today. The man claimed to have scared Nian away by hanging red banners on his door, lighting firecrackers and donning red clothing. According to the legend, every Lunar New Year’s Eve this ferocious underwater beast with sharp teeth and horns would crawl onto the land and attack a nearby village.
For example, Cantonese people eat dishes made of seven types of vegetables. The seventh day of the Lunar New Year (February 23) is when followers believe the Chinese mother goddess, Nuwa, created humanity. As noted earlier, for many people Lunar New Year is a time to consult the stars to find out what lies ahead in the coming months.
And every year, a heavenly stem (one of five elements, which fall into the yin or yang category) is paired with an earthly branch (one of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals). Marking the first new moon of the lunar calendar, it falls on February 17 in 2026, kicking off the 15-day Spring Festival. Chinese New Year is not just one day but over 30 days of festivities and activities, which have their own calendar.

New Year’s Day: Family Visits

Using the broom, swearing, and breaking any dinnerware without appeasing the deities are also considered taboo. Typical actions such as lighting fires and using knives are considered taboo; thus, all consumable food has to be cooked beforehand. It is a traditional practice to light fireworks, burn bamboo sticks and firecrackers, and perform a lion dance to ward off evil spirits.
The beast is said to have terrorised people every year, until he was defeated due to his fear of red, loud noises and fire. Primarily in traditional Chinese culture, the colour red originates from the myth of a monster called Nian. This is why many people clean their homes before the celebrations, as many clean to remove any misfortune or bad luck lingering ahead of the new year. The 15-day festival is about saying goodbye to the past year and, like the season of spring itself, symbolises renewal. This is because it marks the beginning of the spring season and the end of winter in the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. While celebrations and traditions take place annually, the exact date of the Lunar New Year changes every year as it begins with the arrival of a new moon, which signifies the start of a new month.

Why Is 2026 the Year of the Horse?

• On a related note, many say you shouldn’t wash or cut your hair on the first day of the new year either.
• The common things to avoid are that do not speak bad words, break things or sweep the floor (in case you sweep out the good luck).
• Every year, a different animal is honoured based on the Chinese zodiac.
• Reunion dinners (particularly in the Southern regions) may prominently feature specialty meats (e.g. wax-cured meats such as duck and Chinese sausage) and seafood (e.g. lobster and abalone) that are usually reserved for special occasions.
• Called Yuan Xiao Jie in Mandarin Chinese, it’s considered the perfect ending to the weeks-long Lunar New Year preparations and celebrations.
• In certain countries, a statutory holiday is added on the following workday if the New Year (as a public holiday) falls on a weekend.

Traditional foods include carp for long life, whole fish for abundance, dumplings and spring rolls for wealth, long noodles for longevity, sticky rice cakes for success, and citrus fruits for good luck. On the first day of the New Year, sweeping or cleaning is avoided as it is believed to brush away good fortune. In 2026 the Chinese New Year marks the Year of the Horse, according to the Chinese zodiac calendar. These greetings or phrases may also be used just before children receive their red packets, when gifts are exchanged, when visiting temples, or even when tossing the shredded ingredients of yusheng, particularly popular in Malaysia and Singapore. For example, as breaking objects during the new year is considered inauspicious, one may then say 歲歲平安 (Suìsuì-píng’ān) immediately, which means “everlasting peace year after year”.

Public holiday

• Business managers may also give bonuses in the form of red packets to employees.
• A big family reunion dinner is usually held on Lunar New Year’s Eve, which falls on February 16 this year.
• Since the mid-1990s people in China have been given seven consecutive days off work during the Chinese New Year.
• The legal holiday is seven days long, from the Lunar New Year’s Eve to the sixth day of the first lunar month.
• Mauritius is also the only country in Africa that lists the Chinese Spring Festival as a statutory public holiday.

But if you have ever heard of the Lantern Festival, it’s important to note that there is a distinction between the events. But you may have noticed that it doesn’t occur on this exact date every year. The term Chinese New Year is commonly used; however, Lunar New Year has become more widely used as an inclusive term to represent the various nations that also celebrate at the same time of year. Centred around removing the old and bad and welcoming the good and new for the year ahead, many communities and cultures have both similar and different traditions. Celebrated across Asia and beyond, the Lunar New Year sees numerous events and festivities taking place worldwide. We looked around and settled in China Xian Tour due to their incredible efficiency.
Geomancy masters may interpret the data differently, but there is usually a consensus on what the year means for each zodiac animal based on the positions of the stars. Your personal zodiac animal sign is determined by your year of birth, meaning 2026 will welcome plenty of baby Horses. Whether you’re unfamiliar with the occasion or need a refresher, this guide to ushering in the Year of the Horse has you covered. Religious activities and preparations for Lunar New Year would begin on this day.

If in the previous year a death was experienced in the family, seven dishes are served. Most reunion dinners also feature a communal hot pot, as it is believed to signify the coming together of the family members for the meal. Nowadays, single women write their contact numbers on mandarin oranges and throw them into a river or a lake, after which single men collect the oranges and eat them.
Since Chinese New Year falls on different days of the week each year, the governments of some of these countries choose to adjust working days to create a longer public holiday. New Year’s celebrations continued under the Yuan dynasty, when people also gave nian gao (年糕, “year cakes”) to relatives. It is believed that placing the couplets on the door to the home in the days preceding the new year was widespread during the Song dynasty. The Chunlian (Spring Couplets) was written by Meng Chang, an emperor of the Later Shu (935–965 AD), during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period：”新年納餘慶，嘉節號長春” (“Enjoying past legacies in the new year, the holiday foreseeing the long-lasting spring”). Eventually, men zhuang became a symbol of good luck, and people started sending them to friends on New Year’s Day, calling them by a new name, bai nian tie. During the Jin dynasty (266–420), people started the New Year’s Eve tradition of all-night revelry called shousui (守歲).
In Taiwan in the 2000s, some employers also gave red packets as a bonus to maids, nurses, or domestic workers from Southeast Asian countries, although whether this is appropriate is controversial. Incense, tea, fruits, vegetarian food or roasted pig, and gold paper are served as customary protocol for paying respect to an honored person. While large firework displays are popular in some places, Taiwan tends to focus more on temple visits, lantern-lighting ceremonies, and family reunions.citation needed ‘Spring Festival’ is the standard and official term; people in Taiwan typically do not use “Spring Festival” in daily conversations.
It is convenient for people to buy gifts for their New Year visits as well as their home decorations at these markets. These usually open-air markets feature New Year–related products such as flowers, toys, clothing, and even fireworks and firecrackers. Common gifts include fruits (especially oranges, but never pears), cakes, biscuits, chocolates, and candies. In addition to red envelopes, typically given from older individuals to younger ones, small gifts such as food or sweets are exchanged between friends or relatives from different households during Chinese New Year. With the demon vanquished, peace returned to the village, and in gratitude, the elders bestowed upon the courageous young man a red envelope filled with money as a token of appreciation for his valor and for freeing the village from the demon’s menace. When the sui was going to reach out and touch the child’s head, the pillow suddenly brightened with the golden light, and the sui was scared away, so the exorcism effect of “red paper wrapped copper money” spread in China (see also Chinese numismatic charms).

Chinese New Year Calendar

Thus, it’s called renri/jan jat (the people’s birthday). Every year, certain Chinese zodiac signs clash with the stars negatively, so temple visits are considered a good way to resolve those conflicts and bring peace in the coming months. To kick things off, festive cakes and puddings are made on the 24th day of the last lunar month (February 11 in 2026). Festivities often last for 15 days — sometimes even more — with different tasks and activities taking place over that period. Like many major holidays, Lunar New Year can be a lot of work.