Traditional Chinese New Year/Spring Festival Yanliuqing pictures were painted between 1573 and 1620. This one depicts The Legend of the White Snake.
This year, the Chinese begin their New Year (also called the Spring Festival) on February 7. Celebrations begin on the first day of the Chinese lunar month, and end on the fifteenth day. This is the Year of the Rat. When I lived in the Bay Area of San Francisco in the mid-1970s, I went to Chinatown for the festivities. Too many firecrackers going off in the crowds for my comfort, but nevertheless it was an awesome sight: dancing dragons, brightly colored costumes, endless-seeming drums and music, all winding through the narrow San Francisco streets after darkness had fallen. One of the many traditional superstitions I read about as I was searching the Internet for Chinese New Year sites is that you shouldn’t buy books at the start of the New Year. This is because the Chinese word for “book” is a homonym for the Chinese word “lose.” Hmmmm, it’ll be hard, but I’ll try to avoid buying any books on February 7—surely the rule is only for the one day?
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