Chinese New Year is also known as Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year. It's the most important traditional festival in China. It is usually a time between late January or early February and lasts 15 days from the eve of lunar year until the lantern festival. Before the Spring Festival, people clean their homes, put red couplets on their front doors, and set off firecrackers. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated as a family affair, a time of reunion. On the eve of the Spring Festival, a banquet is a must, and the most popular food is Jiaozi (dumpling), which is supposed to bring good fortune. Fish is also a main dish, which brings prosperity. People in the south will make New Year's Cake (Nian Gao, "gao" is a homophone of  "high", so the meaning of New Year's Cake is being promoted or reaching a higher level in the coming year). The celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and the family ancestors. On the New Year's Day, everybody wears new clothes and says happy new year (xin nian hao) and good fortune (gong xi fa cai) to each other. Kids are given red envelopes with money by their relatives.

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Lantern Festival is also called Yuanxiao Festival. It's on the 15th day of the first lunar month, and it's the first full moon after the Spring Festival. It is customary to eat special sweet dumplings called yuanxiao and enjoy displayed lanterns during this festival. Yuanxiao are round balls made of glutinous rice flour stuffed with sugar and bean paste fillings, it symbolizes family unity and happiness. Various types of beautiful lanterns are exhibited on this festive night, fireworks set off, folk shows such as acrobatics, walking on stilts, performing with dragon lanterns, dancing the yangge and other folk dances and playing on swings are displayed. The custom of enjoying lanterns at this time of the year dates back to the first century, and has been popular since then.

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Ching Ming Festival is also known as the Grave-sweeping Festival, "Clear and Bright", is when Chinese families show their respect by visiting the graves of their ancestors. Graves are cleaned, and wine and fruits are offered to the ancestors. It usually on the 4th or 5th day of the fourth lunar month. It also marks the beginning of spring.

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Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival is also known as Duanwu Festival, it falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, and together with Chinese New Year and Moon Festival forms the three major Chinese Festivals. Since the summer is a time when diseases most easily spread, Dragon Boat Festival began as an occasion for driving off evil spirits and pestilence and for finding peace in one's life. It is generally believed that the festival originated to memorialize the ancient patriotic poet Qu Yuan.

Dragon Boat Festival is highlighted by the dragon boat races, in which competing teams drive their boats forward rowing to the rhythm of pounding drums. This lively and colorful tradition has continued unbroken for centuries to the present day.

Qu Yuan, a patriotic statesman who lived in the state of Chu over 2,200 years ago during the Warring States period (476 BC-221 BC), repeatedly offered his king proposals aimed at political corruption. Subsequently, slandered by treacherous officials, he was exiled. In 278 BC, the capital of the State of Chu was lost to his enemy and Qu Yuan drowned himself in despair in Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Aware of the tragedy, the local people living beside the river went out in the boats to try to find his corpse. People began throwing balls of sweet rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into the Miluo River to keep the fish from eating the patriot's body. Over time these rice balls became more elaborate and varied with the addition of pork, peanuts, salted eggs, and other fillings, gradually evolving into the modern day Zongzi (glutinous rice wrapped in a pyramid shape using bamboo or reed leaves). Every year thereafter on this day people continued to row dragon boats on their local rivers in memory of Qu Yuans' life and death, throwing Zongzi into the river as an offering. The most popular dish during Dragon Boat Festival is Zongzi.        

For warding off evil and disease, some customary practices such as hanging calamus and moxa on the front door, and pasting up pictures of Zhong Kui (a nemesis of evil spirits) are used. Adults drink Xiong Huang wine and children are given fragrant sachets, both of which are said to possess qualities for preventing evil and bringing peace.

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Moon Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, it's also called Mid-autumn Festival. it's a time for family reunion. In China, the full moon has always represented the gatherings of friends and family. It's said that this festival originated from the ancient ceremony of Sacrificing to the Moon Goddess. In Chinese fairy tales, there live on the moon the fairy lady Chang E, her pet Jade Rabbit, and a wood cutter named Wu Gang. On this full moon night, families will enjoy the moon while eating moon cakes, pomeloes and drinking tea. Moon cakes are cookies with fillings of sugar, fat, sesame, walnut, the yoke of preserved eggs, ham or other material. The clear full moon has been depicted by Chinese poets since ancient times. And the bright moonlight brings warmth and peace to our hearts.

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Chung Yeung Festival is also known as Double Ninth Day, it's a Senior Citizen's Festival. It falls on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, a time of expressing gratitude to the elderly for their hard work. In Chinese, "nine" is a number belonging to the positive principle "yang", and it has the same pronunciation with the word " long time". Chung Yeung means "double yang". The day is traditionally celebrated by activities including hill-climbing, drinking chrysanthemum wine, hanging dogwood sprays.

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Winter Solstice is a day of deep significance, it's the day when day time is the shortest of the year, it's usually on December 22 or 23. People in the north eat dumplings, sheep, wonton, people in the south eat rice balls, sweet dumplings or long noodles to fortify the body in preparation for the cold winter.

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