This practice reflects the common desire among the Chinese people to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new year, to rid themselves of past poverty and hardships, and to usher in a prosperous and auspicious life in the new year. As a substitute, large-scale fireworks displays have been sponsored by governments in Hong Kong and Singapore. While fireworks and firecrackers are traditionally very popular, some regions have banned them due to concerns over fire hazards. Business managers may also give bonuses in the form of red packets to employees.
As mentioned, the Lunar New Year is also called the Spring Festival in China and marks the beginning of the spring season. “China Xian Tour put together 9 days Beijing, Zhangjiajie, Guilin and Xian Tour bespoke to us. Start planning your China holiday with one of our local specialists. Besides Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival are also representative traditional festivals in China.
These yearly combinations are believed to influence the traits of the era and the people born in that year. Every year, a different animal is honoured based on the Chinese zodiac. In 2027, the celebrations will begin on Saturday, February 6, ushering in the Year of the Goat. For many families, the festival marks more than a change of date, but a cultural reset rooted in renewal, reunion and hope for the months ahead. Community carnivals, family gatherings, parades, traditional food, and fireworks will mark the Year of the Horse. A huge part of Asian culture is not just family and togetherness – but incredible food.

Lunar New Year 2026: A Guide to the Year of the Horse

The beast is said to have terrorised people every year, until he was defeated due to his fear of red, loud noises and fire. Primarily in traditional Chinese culture, the colour red originates from the myth of a monster called Nian. This is why many people clean their homes before the celebrations, as many clean to remove any misfortune or bad luck lingering ahead of the new year. The 15-day festival is about saying goodbye to the past year and, like the season of spring itself, symbolises renewal. This is because it marks the beginning of the spring season and the end of winter in the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. While celebrations and traditions take place annually, the exact date of the Lunar New Year changes every year as it begins with the arrival of a new moon, which signifies the start of a new month.

Red envelopes

In Taiwan in the 2000s, some employers also gave red packets as a bonus to maids, nurses, or domestic workers from Southeast Asian countries, although whether this is appropriate is controversial. Incense, tea, fruits, vegetarian food or roasted pig, and gold paper are served as customary protocol for paying respect to an honored person. While large firework displays are popular in some places, Taiwan tends to focus more on temple visits, lantern-lighting ceremonies, and family reunions.citation needed ‘Spring Festival’ is the standard and official term; people in Taiwan typically do not use “Spring Festival” in daily conversations.
Since Chinese New Year falls on different days of the week each year, the governments of some of these countries choose to adjust working days to create a longer public holiday. New Year’s celebrations continued under the Yuan dynasty, when people also gave nian gao (年糕, “year cakes”) to relatives. It is believed that placing the couplets on the door to the home in the days preceding the new year was widespread during the Song dynasty. The Chunlian (Spring Couplets) was written by Meng Chang, an emperor of the Later Shu (935–965 AD), during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period：”新年納餘慶，嘉節號長春” (“Enjoying past legacies in the new year, the holiday foreseeing the long-lasting spring”). Eventually, men zhuang became a symbol of good luck, and people started sending them to friends on New Year’s Day, calling them by a new name, bai nian tie. During the Jin dynasty (266–420), people started the New Year’s Eve tradition of all-night revelry called shousui (守歲).
If in the previous year a death was experienced in the family, seven dishes are served. 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. Nowadays, single women write their contact numbers on mandarin oranges and throw them into a river or a lake, after which single men collect the oranges and eat them.
A big family reunion dinner is usually held on Lunar New Year’s Eve, which falls on February 16 this year. On a related note, many say you shouldn’t wash or cut your hair on the first day of the new year either. The aim is to rid your home of any bad luck that’s accumulated over the past year.

interesting facts about Lunar New Year that you may not know

From ABC News (Australia), The Year of the Horse explained and how people across Asia celebrate the Lunar New Year The Horse, aligned with peak Yang energy at noon, embodies strength and outward expansion; yet even at this height of energy, balance remains essential. The black (Yin) and white (Yang) halves flow into one another, each containing a dot of its opposite, symbolizing the principle that within every extreme lies the seed of transformation.
Visitors will be showered with gifts after catching up over Lunar New Year treats. Bags are stocked with presents and fruits to give out at people’s homes. For instance, in some northern areas people tend to serve dumplings and noodles, whereas the south can’t live without steamed rice.

• Business managers may also give bonuses in the form of red packets to employees.
• The poem describes people cleaning millet stacks, offering mijiu (rice wine) to guests, slaughtering lambs, visiting their master’s home, toasting him, and expressing wishes for longevity together.
• Eating dumplings is a unique way to express people’s wishes for blessings and good fortune during the end of the old year and the beginning of new year.
• Similarly, expressions such as “dragon-horse spirit” evoke boundless vitality, while idioms like “sky-horse soaring across the heavens” metaphorically describe bold imagination and unrestrained aspiration.
• Since the mid-1990s people in China have been given seven consecutive days off work during the Chinese New Year.
• Mauritius is also the only country in Africa that lists the Chinese Spring Festival as a statutory public holiday.
• The legal holiday is seven days long, from the Lunar New Year’s Eve to the sixth day of the first lunar month.

Chinese New Year Calendar 2026: Key Dates and Customs

The Lunar New Year in 2026 welcomes the Year of the Horse, according to the Chinese lunar calendar. On this day, people light lanterns to symbolize driving out darkness and bringing hope to the coming year. Called Yuan Xiao Jie in Mandarin Chinese, it’s considered the perfect ending to the weeks-long Lunar New Year preparations and celebrations.

In Bangkok, there are large celebrations in Chinatown, Yaowarat Road, where the main road is closed and turned into a pedestrian street, with a member of the royal family in attendance each year to open the ceremony, such as Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Chinese New Year is observed as a public holiday in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, Satun, and Songkhla. Celebrations are centered primarily in Binondo in Manila, the oldest Chinatown in the world, with other celebrations taking place in key cities. Chinese temples are generally open for 24 hours on the first day, distributing red envelopes and sometimes rice, fruits or sugar to the poor.citation needed On 19 January 2001, the Ministry of Religious Affairs issued Ministerial Decree No.13 of 2001 on Imlek Day as a National Holiday to set Hari Tahun Baru Imlek as a “facultative holiday” for the Chinese community.

• Reunion dinners (particularly in the Southern regions) may prominently feature specialty meats (e.g. wax-cured meats such as duck and Chinese sausage) and seafood (e.g. lobster and abalone) that are usually reserved for special occasions.
• The common things to avoid are that do not speak bad words, break things or sweep the floor (in case you sweep out the good luck).
• In certain countries, a statutory holiday is added on the following workday if the New Year (as a public holiday) falls on a weekend.
• On a related note, many say you shouldn’t wash or cut your hair on the first day of the new year either.
• Every year, a different animal is honoured based on the Chinese zodiac.

(If you haven’t prepared your own “gou” yet, here’s an easy recipe for radish cake, a beloved Lunar New Year dish.) That means eating these treats is believed to lead to improvements and growth in the coming year. This is why wearing the fiery color, along with hanging banners and lighting firecrackers or fireworks, are Lunar New Year traditions, all of which are still followed today. The man claimed to have scared Nian away by hanging red banners on his door, lighting firecrackers and donning red clothing. According to the legend, every Lunar New Year’s Eve this ferocious underwater beast with sharp teeth and horns would crawl onto the land and attack a nearby village.
Although the Spring Festival is scheduled on the first day of Ringospin Casino the first lunar month, the activities during Chinese New Year are not limited to just that day. Nowadays, the Spring Festival is seen more as a crucial moment for family reunion and cultural inheritance. Chinese New Year (also called Spring Festival or Lunar New Year) is the most popular holiday in China and Chinese communities around the world. According to the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, years were historically designated through a combination of the Ten Heavenly Stems and the Twelve Earthly Branches.

It is one of the representatives of traditional Chinese snacks and is a spherical food made of glutinous rice flour. Eating dumplings is a unique way to express people’s wishes for blessings and good fortune during the end of the old year and the beginning of new year. Lantern Festival is famous for its Yuan Xiao (sweet rice balls), whose round shape symbolizes family unity and togetherness. It is best to choose bright, colorful, and warm Chinese New Year clothes, especially red clothes, because red symbolizes auspiciousness and festivity. It embodies the affection and nostalgia of more than one billion Chinese people.
However, in 1873, five years after the Meiji Restoration, Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar, and the first day of January became the official and cultural New Year’s Day in Japan. During the New Year holidays, stage bosses gather the most popular actors from various troupes and let them perform repertories from the Qing dynasty. In 2017, it was estimated that over 100 billion of these virtual red envelopes would be sent over the New Year holiday. 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. Legends hold that the Hokkien were spared from a massacre by Japanese pirates by hiding in a sugarcane plantation, between the eighth and ninth days of the Chinese New Year, coinciding with the Jade Emperor’s birthday. The seventh day, traditionally known as Renri (the common person’s birthday), is the day when everyone grows one year older.
Buy yourself a Chinese-style coat, get your kids tiger-head hats and shoes, and decorate your home with some beautiful red Chinese knots, then you will have an authentic Chinese-style Spring Festival. In stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, and other cities, products of traditional Chinese style have started to lead fashion trends. Red couplets and red lanterns are displayed on the door frames and light up the atmosphere. For example, in 2013, New Year’s Eve (9 February) fell on a Saturday and New Year’s Day (10 February) on a Sunday. In 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, official Chinese New Year celebrations were banned in China.
There is a tradition of eating dumplings during the Chinese New Year in north China, but dumplings are eaten on New Year’s Eve in some regions and on the first day of the lunar new year in other regions. Therefore, it is customary to welcome the God of Wealth into one’s home and bless the family with abundant financial resources on this day. Not only can it make you look more energetic and confident, but it can also bring good luck and a good mood to you and your family.
The elders usually hope their kids will be healthy, happy and make progress in the coming year, so they will give red envelopes to them to pass blessings and good luck. Because in Chinese culture, red is the symbol of auspiciousness, joy and prosperity and it can drive out evil spirits and bring good lucks. There are too many people on the way, so the transportation department needs to make every effort to ensure that passengers can go home and come back safely. The reason is that China has a large population, and Chinese New Year is a traditional reunion festival. The festival food in south China is called Yuan Xiao or rice sweet dumpling. Eating rice cake during the Spring Festival symbolizes good luck, sweet life, and high prosperity every year.