I celebrate Chinese New Year because my parents are Chinese
American. Chinese New Year goes by the
lunar calendar. It is called “Nian” in
Chinese.
In the south part of China, Nian was a monster who lived
near a village on a mountain. In
wintertime, food was scarece on the mountain, so Nian roamed the village eating
pets and farm animals. People wanted to
stop him. They wore red clothes because
Nian was afraid of red. Villagers put
sticky Nian cakes outside so when Nian ate them, his paws and mouth were stuck
together. People also blasted fireworks
and firecrackers making him loose his coat of feathers. Eventually Nian died. In the north part of
China, the emperor decided to make dumplings for everyone. He invited everyone over to the palace to
eat. This became known as Nian, or
Chinese New Year.
In China, cities have parades and dragon dances for
celebration. People give red envelopes
to their children. Red envelopes contain
money for good luck and good fortune.
My family and I went to storytelling about the Monkey King at
the Mission Playhouse in San Gabriel.
From my own knowledge, he and his monkey soldiers fought some soldiers from
Heaven because the Heavenly God was upset that the Monkey King stole things
from heaven. The story teller also
taught us Chinese characters. It was
very fun!
Storyteller
Street party
We didn’t just hear stories, we also saw a performance a few
days afterwards. My favorite acrobat
performance was the Monkey King.
The Monkey King
Performers for the New Year Celebration
The Monkey King and me
Chinese people have special foods when celebrating the New
Year. The special foods are sticky Nian
cake, turnip cake, and family reunion dinner with many dishes.
