Spring Festival

Synopsis

The Spring Festival is the most important traditional holiday in China, celebrated on the first day of the lunar new year with a history of over 4,000 years. The Spring Festival travel rush is the world's largest annual human migration, with around 9 billion trips expected in 2025. On New Year's Eve, families gather for a reunion dinner. On the first day of the lunar new year, people exchange greetings and give red envelopes. The Lantern Festival, marked by viewing lantern displays, serves as the grand finale. Key customs include pasting spring couplets, setting off firecrackers, and performing dragon and lion dances. In 2024, it was included as a UN holiday, with around 2 billion people celebrating worldwide.

Overview

The Spring Festival is the most important and grand traditional festival in China, and it holds the greatest significance in the hearts of the Chinese people. The Spring Festival falls on the first day of the first lunar month, but celebrations begin with the Kitchen God worship on the 23rd or 24th day of the twelfth lunar month and continue until the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month, spanning over twenty days in total. The core of the Spring Festival is reunion—no matter where they are, Chinese people will try their best to return home before New Year's Eve to share a reunion dinner with their families. It is this dedication to reunion that creates the Chunyun, or Spring Festival travel rush, the world's largest annual human migration.

The history of the Spring Festival can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty over 4,000 years ago. Ancient people held grand sacrificial ceremonies at the turn of the year to worship ancestors and deities and pray for a good harvest in the coming year, which formed the prototype of the Spring Festival. In 1914, the Beiyang Government officially named the first day of the first lunar month as the Spring Festival. In 2006, the Spring Festival was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. In 2024, the United Nations designated the Lunar New Year as a UN holiday, making the Spring Festival an official global festival.

Traditional Customs

The reunion dinner is the most important meal of the Spring Festival. The whole family gathers around the table, which is filled with various delicious dishes. Different regions have different traditions for the reunion dinner—Northerners must eat dumplings (shaped like gold ingots, symbolizing wealth), Southerners must eat niangao (sticky rice cake, symbolizing progress and promotion every year), Cantonese must have chicken (symbolizing plans and opportunities), and Shanghainese must have fish (symbolizing surplus and prosperity every year). No matter how the dishes differ, the core of the reunion dinner is always family reunion.

Red envelopes (lucky money) are the most popular custom during the Spring Festival. Traditionally, elders give red envelopes containing lucky money to younger, unmarried family members during the festival. The color red represents good luck, and the money is meant to suppress evil spirits and ensure safety. In recent years, WeChat red envelopes and Alipay red envelopes have made giving lucky money more convenient, with tens of billions of digital red envelopes being sent and received during each Spring Festival period.

Chunyun (Spring Festival Travel Rush)

Chunyun is the largest periodic human migration in history. During the approximately 40 days around the Spring Festival each year, hundreds of millions of Chinese people travel across vast distances to return home for the New Year. During the 2025 Chunyun period, the total number of cross-regional passenger trips in China reached about 9 billion. The scenes of crowded railway stations, bus stations, and airports are among the most spectacular sights of the Chinese Spring Festival.

Spring Festival Symbols

Cultural Influence

The Spring Festival has transcended China's borders to become a global cultural phenomenon. Approximately 2 billion people worldwide celebrate the Lunar New Year in various ways. Major cities around the world such as New York, London, Paris, and Sydney host grand Spring Festival celebrations in their Chinatowns each year—dragon and lion dances, red lanterns, and the sound of firecrackers spread the festive atmosphere of Chinese New Year across the globe. The Spring Festival also drives global consumption—Southeast Asia, South Korea, Vietnam, and other regions have traditions of celebrating the Lunar New Year.

References

1. Baidu Baike: https://baike.baidu.com/item/Spring Festival
2. Wikipedia: https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/Spring Festival
3. China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network: https://www.ihchina.cn
4. UN Holidays: https://www.un.org/zh/observances/lunar-new-year