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Chinese New Year 4705

As for all new beginnings, the Chinese also mark their New Year celebrations with much excitement and cheer ! Well-known for its gaiety and splendor, the Chinese New Year is, indeed, a very colorful occasion for its people and for others over the world. Kicking off on a new moon day, the Chinese New Year is a 15 day long celebration, which ends on the full moon night with the famous Festival of Lanterns.

These 15 days of the celebration include prayers to ancestors, traditional meals, decorations with symbolic items (usually in red), reuniting with family, visiting friends and relatives, exchanging gifts, shopping, cleaning the house, wearing new clothes, joining in elaborate parades with masks and floats of dragon and the symbolic animal, majestic lion dances, bursting firecrackers and, of course, wishing each other a very happy ‘Xin Nian’ or a very Happy New Year !

The Chinese New Year marks the beginning of the bright and beautiful spring and hence it’s also popularly known as the ‘Spring Festival’. So it’s definitely a time to move towards all bounties—love, luck, fortune, health, wealth and prosperity in every way ! And the Chinese make the most of this auspicious occasion with food, fun, friends, family and full-fledged festivity.

Do you know why we always have a different date for the Chinese New Year every year? Well, the Chinese calendar being based on a combination of both the solar and lunar movements, Chinese New Year’s day always falls on a different date each year. In 2007, or the Chinese Year 4705, the New Year day is February 18. And, 4705 is the Year of the Pig ! So start crowing your wishes now, in case you miss anyone on the special hour !

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