We are about to welcome the most important day for Chinese people, the Chinese New Year.Chinese New Year is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. In Chinese, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival as the spring season in the lunisolar calendar traditionally starts with lichun, the first of the twenty-four solar terms which the festival celebrates around the time of the Chinese New Year. Marking the end of winter and the beginning of the spring season, observances traditionally take place from Chinese New Year's Eve, the evening preceding the first day of the year, to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February.

Chinese New Year is one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture, and has strongly influenced Lunar New Year celebrations of its 56 ethnic groups, such as the Losar of Tibet, and of China's neighbours, including the Korean and Vietnamese New Years, as well as in Okinawa. It is also celebrated worldwide in regions and countries that house significant Overseas Chinese or Sinophone populations, especially in Southeast Asia. These include Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is also prominent beyond Asia, especially in Australia, Canada, Mauritius, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as in many European countries.

The Chinese New Year is associated with several myths and customs. The festival was traditionally a time to honour deities as well as ancestors. Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the New Year vary widely, and the evening preceding the New Year's Day is frequently regarded as an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also a tradition for every family to thoroughly clean their house, in order to sweep away any ill fortune and to make way for incoming good luck. Another custom is the decoration of windows and doors with red paper-cuts and couplets. Popular themes among these paper-cuts and couplets include good fortune or happiness, wealth, and longevity. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red envelopes.

The day before Chinese New Year is usually accompanied with a dinner feast, consisting of special meats as a main course and an offering for the New Year. This meal is comparable to Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner.

In northern China, it is customary to make jiaozi or dumplings which are eaten at midnight. Dumplings symbolize wealth because their shape resembles a Chinese sycee. In the South, it is customary to make a glutinous new year cake (niangao) and send pieces of it as gifts to relatives and friends in the coming days. Some families visit local temples hours before midnight to pray for success by lighting the first incense of the year. Today many households hold parties. Traditionally, firecrackers were lit to ward off evil spirits. The household doors are sealed and not reopened until dawn in a ritual called "opening the door of fortune" The tradition of staying up late on Chinese New Year's Eve is known as shousui. It is still practiced and believed to add to parental longevity.

A reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve during which family members gather for a celebration. The venue will usually be in or near the home of the most senior member of the family. The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and sumptuous and traditionally includes dishes of meat (namely, pork and chicken) and fish. 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. Most reunion dinners (particularly in the Southern regions) also prominently feature speciality meats (e.g. wax-cured meats like duck and Chinese sausage) and seafood (e.g. lobster and abalone) that are usually reserved for this and other special occasions during the remainder of the year. In most areas, fish is included, but not eaten completely (and the remainder is stored overnight), as the Chinese phrase "may there be surpluses every year" sounds the same as "let there be fish every year." Eight individual dishes are served to reflect the belief of good fortune associated with the number. If in the previous year a death was experienced in the family, seven dishes are served.

Other traditional foods consists of noodles, fruits, dumplings, spring rolls, and Tangyuan which are also known as sweet rice balls. Each dish served during Chinese New Year represents something special. The noodles used to make longevity noodles are usually very thin, long wheat noodles. These noodles are longer than normal noodles that are usually fried and served on a plate, or boiled and served in a bowl with its broth. The noodles symbolize the wish for a long life. The fruits that are typically selected would be oranges, tangerines, and pomelos as they are round and "golden" color symbolizing fullness and wealth. Their lucky sound when spoken also brings good luck and fortune. The Chinese pronunciation for orange is 橙 (chéng), which sounds the same as the Chinese for 'success' (成). One of the ways to spell tangerine(桔 jú) contains the Chinese character for luck (吉 jí). Pomelos are believed to bring constant prosperity. Pomelo in Chinese (柚 yòu) sounds similar to 'to have' (有 yǒu), disregarding its tone, however it sounds exactly like 'again' (又 yòu). Dumplings and spring rolls symbolize wealth, whereas sweet rice balls symbolize family

togetherness.

Red packets for the immediate family are sometimes distributed during the reunion dinner. These packets contain money in an amount that reflects good luck and honorability. Several foods are consumed to usher in wealth, happiness, and good fortune. Several of the Chinese food names are homophones for words that also mean good things. Many families in China still follow the tradition of eating only vegetarian food on the first day of the New Year, as it is believed that doing so will bring good luck into their lives for the whole year. Like many other New Year dishes, certain ingredients also take special precedence over others as these ingredients also have similar-sounding names with prosperity, good luck, or even counting money.

I believe everyone has a certain understanding of Chinese New Year. In order to celebrate this big holiday, Abufan will give employees a holiday from February 6th to February 17th to celebrate the reunion. During this period, our company will temporarily stop order production. If our friends have urgent matters to contact us, you are welcome to send text messages or call us. Here, we also wish all our customers a happy new year, good health and happiness to their families!