Festivals

“A festival” is 节日 jiérì in Chinese, the festive day, and everything rests on 节 jié. In its old form, 節, the character carries the bamboo radical, 竹: it is first of all the node of the stem, the swelling that divides it into regular sections. From the node we move to the section, then to the points that divide up the year ⟶ the festivals. The same character turns up in 季节 jìjié, the season, in 节目 jiémù, an item on a programme, and in 细节 xìjié, a detail. For 节约 jiéyuē, to save, the path is less clear: here 节 has the sense of “to moderate”, which is linked to the regular rhythm of the nodes, though I cannot say so for certain.

The traditional festivals follow the lunar calendar, so their date changes every year in ours. But look at them closely: almost all of them fall on a doubled number or on a full moon. The first day of the first month is New Year; the fifth of the fifth month, 端午节 Duānwǔjié, the Dragon Boat Festival; the seventh of the seventh, 七夕 Qīxī; the ninth of the ninth, 重阳节 Chóngyángjié, the “double yang”, because nine is the yang number par excellence. On the moon side, the fifteenth of the first month gives the Lantern Festival, the fifteenth of the eighth the Mid-Autumn Festival. Only one major festival escapes the rule. 清明节 Qīngmíngjié follows the sun: it is one of the twenty-four solar terms, and it falls every year around 5 April.

New Year, for its part, changed its name in the 20th century. When the Republic adopted the Western calendar, 元旦 Yuándàn, “the first morning”, moved to 1 January, and the old New Year became 春节 Chūnjié, the Spring Festival (see our page The Spring Festival). In conversation, people simply say 过年 guònián, literally “to cross the year”, as you would cross a mountain pass or a river. That is the whole point of the legend of the 年兽 niánshòu, the Nian monster that came out at the end of every year and fled from the noise of firecrackers. That said, I know of no ancient text that tells this story: it looks very much like a recent one, which does not stop it from being told in every school.

The money given to children is called 压岁钱 yāsuìqián: 压 “to press, to hold down”, 岁 “the year” ⟶ the money that holds back the years. It is also explained by a pun, 岁 being pronounced like 祟 suì, the evil spirit that had to be kept at bay. It slips into a 红包 hóngbāo, a red envelope, and since 2014 it has slipped into the phone as well: people have fun with 抢红包 qiǎng hóngbāo, “grabbing” the virtual envelopes that friends send to WeChat groups (to the point of forgetting dinner, as in our sentence 22).

The heart of the festival remains 团圆 tuányuán, the family reunion: 团 and 圆 both mean round, the complete circle. Hence the largest human migration in the world, the 春运 chūnyùn, when hundreds of millions of people head home for the New Year’s Eve dinner. 有钱没钱，回家过年: rich or poor, you go home. That evening, people eat in front of the 春晚 Chūnwǎn, the gala on central television, which everyone has watched since 1983 and everyone criticises the next day (it has almost become a custom in its own right).

The full moon of the eighth month carries the same idea. The round moon calls for the family gathered together, and the 月饼 yuèbing, the mooncake, is round too (see our page The Mid-Autumn Festival). Watch out for the rice balls of the Lantern Festival: 元宵 yuánxiāo in the North, 汤圆 tāngyuán in the South, they are more or less the same thing, but they are not made the same way. The first are rolled in rice flour, the second shaped by hand. As for 七夕, the page The Chinese Valentine’s Day tells the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.

On the ninth of the ninth month, people used to climb to high places, 登高 dēnggāo, with a sprig of 茱萸 zhūyú at their belt (it is often translated as “dogwood”, but the plant is not the same everywhere) to ward off misfortune. It was on that day that Wang Wei, at seventeen according to tradition, far from his family, wrote the two lines of our last sentence: 独在异乡为异客，每逢佳节倍思亲. The whole poem is explained character by character on our page A Thought for My Brothers - Wang Wei. Since 1989, the Double Ninth has also been the festival of the elderly: 九九 sounds like 久久 jiǔjiǔ, “for a long, long time”.

Modern festivals have a vocabulary of their own, often a wry one. The seven days off in October, the 黄金周 huángjīnzhōu, are paid for with 调休 tiáoxiū: to get them in a row, you work the weekend before or after, and every year social media complains about it. 11 November used to be 光棍节 Guānggùnjié, Singles’ Day, because of its four “1”s lined up like sticks (光棍, “the bare stick” ⟶ the single man), until online retail turned it into 双十一 Shuāng Shíyī, the biggest shopping day on the planet.

Foreign festivals, the 洋节 yángjié, arrived with the shopping malls, and the word keeps a hint of suspicion. Christmas has made room for itself, Chinese style: on Christmas Eve, the 平安夜 Píng'ānyè, “the night of peace”, people give an apple, because 苹果 píngguǒ begins like 平安 píng'ān. Watch out for 万圣节 Wànshèngjié: in principle it is All Saints’ Day, “the festival of all the saints”, but in China it really is Halloween that is celebrated under this name.

Birthdays, ceremonies and lucky charms (the number eight, the colour red, the 福 stuck upside down) will have their own page. One last trap to finish with: 过节 guòjié means to celebrate, but with the Beijing 儿, 过节儿 guòjiér, it means a grudge. Two people who 有过节儿 have celebrated nothing together. Quite the opposite.

Click on any character on the page: its stroke order is shown stroke by stroke, with the arrow that gives the direction of the movement.