【英语角||话题讨论】第二期：龙年话新春 How do you spend Spring Festival?

基本词汇与短语

【Greeting Season】

    春节 Spring Festival              

    农历 lunar calendar

    正月 lunar January; the first month by lunar calendar

    除夕 New Year‘s Eve; eve of lunar New Year

    初一 the beginning of New Year    

    元宵节 The Lantern Festival

【Customs】
    
     过年 Guo-nian; have the Spring Festival

     对联 poetic couplet: two successive rhyming lines in poetry

     春联 Spring Festival couplets        

     剪纸 paper-cuts
    
     买年货 special purchases for the Spring Festival ; do Spring Festival shopping

     年画 New Year paintings              

      敬酒 propose a toast

      灯笼 lantern: a portable light          

      烟花 fireworks

      爆竹 firecrackers (People scare off evil spirits and ghosts with the loud pop.)

      红包 red packets, red envelope (cash wrapped up in red paper, symbolize fortune and wealth in the
coming year.)

      舞狮 lion dance (The lion is believed to be able to dispel evil and bring good luck.)

      舞龙 dragon dance (to expect good weather and good harvests)

      戏曲 traditional opera                  

      杂耍 variety show; vaudeville

      灯谜 riddles written on lanterns    

      灯会 exhibit of lanterns

      守岁 staying-up                        

      禁忌 taboo

      拜年 pay New Year‘s call; give New Year‘s greetings; New Year‘s visit

      去晦气 get rid of the ill- fortune

      祭祖宗 offer sacrifices to one‘s ancestors

      压岁钱 gift money; money given to children as a lunar New Year gift

【Culture Note】In the old days, New Year‘s money was given in the form of one hundred copper coins
strung together on a red string and symbolized the hope that one would live to be a hundred years old.
Today, money is placed inside red envelopes in denominations considered auspicious and given to
represent luck and wealth

     辞旧岁 bid farewell to the old year

     扫房 spring cleaning; general house-cleaning

【Food names】

    年糕 Nian-gao; rise cake; New Year cake

    团圆饭 family reunion dinner                

    年夜饭 the dinner on New Year‘s Eve

    饺子 Jiao-zi; Chinese meat ravioli          

    八宝饭 eight treasures rice pudding

    汤圆 Tang-yuan; dumplings made of sweet rice, rolled into balls and stuffed with either sweet or  spicy fillings

    糖果盘 candy tray:                            

    什锦糖 assorted candies - sweet and fortune

     蜜冬瓜 candied winter melon - growth and good health

     西瓜子 red melon seed - joy, happiness, truth and sincerity

     金桔 cumquat - prosperity                    

     红枣 red dates - prosperity

     糖莲子 candied lotus seed - many descendents to come

     糖藕 candied lotus root - fulfilling love relationship

     花生糖 peanut candy - sweet

【Blessing】

    Treasures fill the home 财源广进
    Business flourishes 事业兴隆
    Peace all year round 岁岁平安
    Wishing you prosperity 恭喜发财

    Harmony brings wealth 家和万事兴
    May all your wishes come true 心想事成
    Everything goes well 万事如意
    The country flourishes and people live in peace 国家富强、人民安康
    Money and treasures will be plentiful 财源茂盛
    Wishing you every success Promoting to a higher position 事业有成、更上一层楼、蒸蒸日上
    Safe trip wherever you go 一帆风顺

    Wish you happiness and prosperity in the coming year! 祝你新的一年快乐幸福
    Wish you success in your career and happiness of your family! 事业成功，家庭美满（阖家欢乐）

thanks cc, there are so useful, in Chinese New Year will often to use these word and send some message to oversea of my friends, thanks so much

I want to go bach China, celebrate the chinese new year. Eat the dinner on New Year‘s Eve with my family. I want to see the dragon or lion dance, because in Europe I cant see that.....thats a shame.... And of course in China have a new year atmosphare.... Huangarian people didnt celebrate the chinese new year... so...
I want to go back China!!!!

@ Vanilla_Qian

I wanna go back to China as well. ┭┮﹏┭┮

Well, I went to snow tubing and skiing during the weekend just before the Chinese New Year with my friend, we had a wonderful time there. We went SPA later after skiing, it was awesome to sit in the hot water after skiing when it was snowing.
I didn't do anything traditional for the New Year though, hard to get into such a mood here.

To be honest, the atmosphere of Spring Festival is not so strong in my hometown. Burning firewokes, visiting friends and enjoying the family reunion dinner which might be the typical way of celebrating the Chinese New Year. Then parents play cards and mahjong while we teanages hold small parties or have a tour together. What's worth mentioning here is that there were so many people to burn incense on First Day of Lunar New Year, from midnight to the next day. The temple was packed, sweltering rocking.I even lost the button of my clothes among the surging pedestrians.

@ 岚君。

Unlike you, I did something traditional. On the Chinese New Year's Eve, I put the Spring Festival couplets, 'Fu' Character, as well as  the lanterns on the wall, which I brought from China last year. Then I had the hot pot with my friends and watched Spring Festival Gala Evening on the internet in the meantime. After that, we still made some dumplings and Tangyuan. It wasn't bad, was it?

@ 风信子lynn

I think Spring Festival is just the time for family gatherings and holiday meals.  As for my family, we normally don't go to the temple during Spring Festival. That may be the different customs at different places.

It is not the festival that I expected. There are some complicates made me stay in Beijing instead of going back. Although my parents came here to celebrate traditional festival together, there are no cheer moods for me. Here has no friend at all. I spend such festival twice and unfortunately I will have such spring festival for next three years, I will on duty and on call during summer and winter vacations. But I am very happy to see my parents and stay together with them, eat dumplings and lots of delicious yummy food, around my dear families I feel warm and happiness.

@ zhuomian

Although you stay in Beijing, it is great that your parents can join you to have Spring Festival together. It is always nice to spend some time with your family during festivals.  

Frankly speaking, I did not hold much expectations for such traditional chinese festivals even it was the most important one --the spring festival, which meant tons of family reunion, relatives laughters and delecious food for children everywhere in the past "dreamtime". So, that's almost it--a regular yet a little boring festival with a little excitement on the lunar new year's eve, which turned out to be a relatively wonderful football game I really enjoyed.
As I had not done much during the festive vocation, I found it once again that it is always easier said than done as I together with my 29 other buddies had got some homework to do during the winter holiday. yes! you are right! we college guys still have to finish so much business while"enjoying" our vocation. All I want to say is one F word!
All complaints aside, it is not a bad time to do some silent thinking during the seem-to-be properous festival time as far as I have concluded.Just as mentioned above, such traditional festivals could not call up the interest of most young people even a percent of middle aged people because now we have put too much energy on how to behave fantastically well in the foreign festivals like the father's/mother's day, the valentine's day, especially the christmas .what surprised me most was that some of the guys who celebrated the christmas even had not a single idea of what and why they were celebrting for! How ironic! why can't we spend more of our limited time on our own festivals which has such a long history and of which we all chinese people should be proud.
I guess all I want to say is that if we want to have a better and impressive spring festival while having lots of fun, there is still a long we ahead of us to go.

PS:
just wondering..........

diving...........

disappearing..........

I must study hard , although everyone have a relax in new years .
my mother say:"you should spend everytime useful."
i have a dream,in the better enviroment, in the better life.

@ 云锁潇湘

Spring Festival is not that exciting. I think it is just for you to spend time with family and loved ones. Imagine that if you haven't seen your parents for one year, how great it would be when you have Spring Festival together.

As for other foreign festivals, I don't think it is bad to celebrate them. Any little excuse to show your love will show your parents or friends how truly caring you are.

@左。微希
for the first part, I have to admit that your opinion do make some sense but it is only partly true for us. Or maybe it is because of the growing up environment or something related to the special situation with my parents, I myself, did not feel that kinda strong feeling of excitement even I spent less than a month's time with my parents in the past year and got to meet them in this time. It also had nothing to do with the fact that I might be a little ungrateful or whatever the hell it is. maybe I have to say sorry that I just can not feel too much about the special and moving bonding thing in between parents and the child.Yet, overall, THX a lot for reminding.

for the second part, I think you missed my point. I do not believe the foreign festivals are bad or mean or whatever. while what I DO believe is that we chinese people seem to have put so much energy on celebrating blindly on foreign one that many of us have a great tendency to have forget the greatness of our own traditional festivals. FYI, the KOREA have alreadly unshamedly claimed the Dragon Boat Festival or what I can remember exactly to be their own festival while we government did not do much to build such kind of senses amog ordinary citizens. I am not sure you get my point this time but what I AM sure is that if it keeps going like this, our precious cultural heritage will someday loss its own significance and soon die.

PS:
=-=
only for discussion, I am just a normal guy who did not care much about where the hell the society is going.
just some seem-to-be serious and  pessimistic sentences.
nighty-night~

=-=

@ 云锁潇湘

I agree that it is just a free discussion. Not a big deal.

So for the first part, I understand your feelings, and hope you could enjoy it more in the future.

For the second part, I also agree that we should protect our traditional culture. But how do do this? Shall we start by ourselves? Shall we start from the most important one - Spring Festival?

@左。微希

haha, you are funny.I get your point.
on the one hand, I agre with you that we do need to start with ourselves.but, on the other hand, sort of more importantly, I still see it as more of a "government action","social responsibility" kinda thing.
you are quite a talker.

@ 云锁潇湘

To be honest, I am not such a talker.  

As the moderator of English Corner, I must do my best to make it active, though It is not an easy job.

I find your English is quite good, so I do need kinda support from you guys. Please!

@左。微希

actually, I think you have already done a pretty good job here in the English corner. After all, you just have to admit that paipai has been and will be mainly intended for the theme of literature, or more specifically--novels,including updating, discussing and downloading~~stuff like that. Sections such as your english corner or something like the sports, travelling photograghy,foods, clothes or other theme sections about entertainment and stuff will always be the "side salad" compared to the main dish in the whole paipai table if you know what I mean. So maybe it is the best for you to just stay where you are and try to do well with the grand background of paipai.

Maybe PB is quite easy for everyone to get or the guys here have just get used to get PBfrom some other way or whatever the reason it is. Or perhaps it is meant to be what it is now--a relatively silent section for some quiet people to take a nap or snack in the late afternoon or some other time like that, which is my lovely imagination for this place. The funniest thing was that I remember once in a while there were a certain number of people who replied an activity post mistakenly used "daring" instead of "darling" so that such sentences showed up as "my daring, where are you?","daring, I miss you so much and I hope that we can meet soon ". I also replied again and again for several times just trying correct such silly mistakes but unfortunately, I failed as dozens of ''daring" still kept coming up........

might be a little garrulous I guess .

glad to offer some help for you and for the little cute english corner~~

@ 云锁潇湘

Yes, you are right. English Corner is a kinda side dish. I just wanna do something to make it different, although it will ever be a side dish. I don't know whether you could understand me or not.


The "daring" stuff may happend before I came in, so I didn't see that. Anyway, thanks very much for what you have done and will do to English Corner.  

Read all the discussion,I have no idea how to describe my Spring Festival.Every festival is nice but the age increasing is bad.Be home,I stayed with my family,had New Year's visit,ate delicious food,enjoyed happy moment.I have to cling to my work in a new year.The process is hard and long,in contrast,the effort will be not big and marked.No matter what the future is,just go on with honest heart.Let's  zeal heart make friends with the new knowledge.