春节习俗

农历

The Chinese calendar is the collection of the official and civil calendars used in China and some neighbouring countries in different periods of history.

The official calendar in China today is the Gregorian calendar, which is a solar calendar. It is used for public and business affairs.

The civil calendar in much of China is the Han calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar. It is used for selecting the day of a wedding or funeral, for opening a venture, or a relocation.

门神

"The custom dates back to the Tang Dynasty, whose founder Emperor Tang Taizong (599 - May 26, 649) honoured two of his most loyal generals – Qin Shubao and Yuchi Jingde – by having their painted portraits hung on his front door. Ordinary families soon adopted the imperial custom, putting woodblock prints of the ever-vigilant generals on their front gates in the hope of attracting good luck and fending off evil spirits. The Door God business soon spread throughout China, adding other folklore heroes and mythological figures to the repertoire."

剪纸

Paper-cut is a very distinctive visual art of Chinese handicrafts. It originated from the 6th century when women used to paste golden and silver foil cuttings onto their hair at the temples, and men used them in sacred rituals. Later, they were used during festivals to decorate gates

and windows. After hundreds of years' development, now they have become a very popular means of decoration among country folk, especially women。

福

The character Fú (福, Unicode U+798F) meaning "good fortune" or "happiness" is represented both as a Chinese ideograph, but also at times pictorially, in one of its homophonous forms, most popularly as a bat, but also sometimes as the cereal bran. It is also often found on a figurine

of the male god of the same name, one o f the trio of "star gods" Fú, Lù, Shòu.

When displayed as a Chinese ideograph, Fú is almost universally displayed upside-down on

diagonal red squares. The reasoning is based on a wordplay: in nearly all varieties of Chinese: the words for "upside-down" (倒，Pinyin: dào) and "to arrive" (到，Pinyin: dào) are homophonous. Therefore, the phrase an "upside-down Fú" sounds nearly identical to the phrase "Good luck arrives". Pasting the character upside-down on a door or doorpost thus translates into a wish

for prosperity to descend upon a dwelling.