Spring Festival (the 1 st day of the 1 st month on the Chinese lunar calendar )

Also know as guonian (xelebrating or spending the New Year or the Spring Festival) , it is China 's oldest traditional festival. Celebrations will last from the New Year's Eve to the 15 th day of the first lunar month. People traditionally spend New Year's Eve aaat home with all the family members getting together. For the festival, people decorate their windows with paper cuts, place New Year's couplets on the frame of their front door , pin up New Year's paintings in their living rooms, and eat jiaozi, a kind of dumplings with meat and vegetable stuffing.

The Lantern Festival (the 15 th of the first lanar month)

Also called Duanwu Festival, most people say that the is held in remembrance of Qu Yuan (c.340-c.278BC), a great patriotic poet of Chu State in the Warring States period (475-221BC) who committed suicide in the Miluo River, Hunan Province; Other argur that the ancient Yue people held sacrifices to the dragon totem ; Still others narrate that the festival has been evolved from the Summer Solstice in the Xia(2070-1600BC), Shang(1600-1046BC), and Zhou(1046-256BC),dynasty. People eat zongzi, a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in reed leaves, compete in dragon boat races , cleanse their homes by putting up the leaves of mugwort (Artemisia argyi ) or cattail on either side of the door, spray realgar water in the room, and drink realgar wine (traditionally drunk during the Dragon Boat Festival to get rid of calamities and prevent poisonous creatures).

The Mid- Autumn Festival (the 15 th day of the 8 th lunar month)

It is a time for family reunions, symbolized by the full moon, which appears to be bigger and brighter than it is at any other time of the year, and moon cakes. It is traditional to eat moon cakes on the day drink wine fermented with osmanthus flowers and enjoy the moon at night.

The Double Ninth Festival ,(the 9 th day of the 9 th lunar month)

On this day ,also called Chongyang Festival, people customarily climb up mountains and appreciate chrysanthemums. It is also the festival for the old and a time for family get-togethers.

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