The Legend of Chinese New Year

Happy new year everyone! Today is the lunar Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival. This is probably the most important festival for Chinese people in addition to the Mid Autumn Festival.  During the festival we generally eat a lot, light up fireworks, and give red envelopes to children.  Doors in China are also decorated with red paper with couplets written on them and there are often many parades with dragon and lion dancers. What is less known in America is the original reason for this joyous and boisterous celebration, and it is a pretty interesting legend that I shall retell here.

A long long time ago, there lived a ferocious monster named Nian.  It was bigger than an ox and so ugly that no man could lay eyes upon it without vomiting. Its favorite food was human and it was able to swallow several people in one bite, but it was so lazy that it would only hunt once a year.  Every year it came down from the mountains in the midst of winter on a moonless night and raided the first village it came upon. Thus the people dreaded the new moon in the coldest night of the winter, and feared for their lives every time the year ends.

One year, the hungry Nian came down from the mountains as usual and ran to a village under the cover of darkness.  Only one house in the village had its light on and Nian walked towards the home.  As it approached the window it suddenly heard a loud noise and was startled, and then it saw the home had red paper on its walls and it was even more frightened!  The giant beast was afraid of the color red and loud noises!  It howled in terror and ran away from the village.

The villagers rejoiced the fact that Nian did not take any of them victim, and the next year they were ready.  They all decorated their homes with red lanterns and red paper and prepared firecrackers and loud musical instruments.  On the night of the new moon in the middle of winter, they had a giant party with gongs, drums, and firecrackers.  The village was lit up in lights and glowed red.

Some say that Nian came by the village again and was killed as it cowered in fear, and others say that Nian just never bothered the humans ever again.  Nevertheless, the villagers continued the tradition of celebrating in the midst of winter with lots of noise and crimson decorations.  Thousands of years passed, and the word for “year” in Chinese became “Nian”.  If you look closely at the Chinese character, you can imagine that its a stylized picture of a beast with a horn, large mouth, and a long tail.  The expression for new year’s day is sometimes “guo nian”, which means “having past the nian”, or “having survived the nian”.  Red became a color of joy, celebration, and ward against evil and that is why it is the color many Chinese brides wear.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the story, and if you have a Chinese friend tell them happy new year!

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