11/02/2021
Today is Chinese New Year's Eve.
The biggest event of any Chinese New Year's Eve is the annual reunion dinner. Dishes consisting of special meats are served at the tables, as a main course for the dinner and offering for the New Year. This meal is comparable to Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. and remotely similar to Christmas dinner in other countries with a high percentage of Christians.
In northern China, it is customary to make jiaozi, or dumplings, after dinner to eat around midnight. Dumplings symbolize wealth because their shape resembles a Chinese sycee. In contrast, in the South, it is customary to make a glutinous new year cake (niangao) and send pieces of it as gifts to relatives and friends in the coming days. Niรกngฤo [Pinyin] literally means "new year cake" with a homophonous meaning of "increasingly prosperous year in year out".
After dinner, some families go to local temples hours before the new year begins to pray for a prosperous new year by lighting the first incense of the year; however in modern practice, many households hold parties and even hold a countdown to the new year. Traditionally, firecrackers were lit to scare away evil spirits with the household doors sealed, not to be reopened until the new morning in a ritual called "opening the door of fortune" (ๅผ่ดข้จ; ้่ฒก้; kฤicรกimรฉn).
Beginning in 1983, the CCTV New Year's Gala is broadcast in China four hours before the start of the New Year and lasts until the succeeding early morning. Watching it has gradually become a tradition in China. The final countdown to the New Year is led by the hosts near the end of the show; traditionally, the Gala has closed with a performance of the song "Can't forget tonight" (้พๅฟไปๅฎต), originally performed by Li Guyi. A tradition of going to bed late on Chinese New Year's Eve, or even keeping awake the whole night and morning, known as shousui (ๅฎๅฒ), is still practised as it is thought to add on to one's parents' longevity.
