Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is commonly called "Lunar New Year", because it is based on the lunisolar Chinese calendar. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: ; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends with Lantern Festival which is on the 15th day. Chinese New Year's Eve is known as chú xī. It literally means "Year-pass Eve".
Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. Ancient Chinese New Year is a reflection on how the people behaved and what they believed in the most.
Chinese New Year is celebrated in countries and territories with significant Han Chinese populations (Chinatowns), such as Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors, as well as cultures with whom the Chinese have had extensive interaction. These include Koreans (Seollal), Tibetans and Bhutanese (Losar), Mongolians (Tsagaan Sar), Vietnamese, and the Japanese before 1873 (Oshogatsu).
In countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, although Chinese New Year is not an official holiday, many ethnic Chinese hold large celebrations and Australia Post, Canada Post, and the US Postal Service issue New Year's themed stamps.

Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival or Yuan Xiao Festival (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Yuánxiāojié) or Shang Yuan Festival (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Shàngyuánjié) in China is a festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar year in the Chinese calendar, the last day of the Lunar Chinese New Year celebration. It is not to be confused with the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is sometimes also known as the "Lantern Festival" in locations such as Singapore, Malaysia. During the Lantern Festival, children go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: tùzidēng) and solve riddles on the lanterns (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: cāidēngmí). It officially ends the Chinese New Year celebrations.
In ancient times, the lanterns were fairly simple, for only the emperor and noblemen had large ornate ones; in modern times, lanterns have been embellished with many complex designs. For example, lanterns are now often made in shapes of animals.
The Lantern Festival is also known as the Little New Year since it marks the end of the series of celebrations starting from the Chinese New Year.
In some region and countries, this festival is also regarded as the Chinese version of St. Valentine's Day, a day celebrating love and affection between lovers in Chinese tradition and culture.

Qingming Festival

The Qingming Festival (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Qīngmíngjié, Ching Ming Festival in Hong Kong. Clear Bright Festival, Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox), usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar. Astronomically it is also a solar term. The Qingming festival falls on the first day of the fifth solar term, named Qingming. Its name denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime ( Tàqīng, "treading on the greenery") and tend to the graves of departed ones.
Qingming has been regularly observed as a statutory public holiday in Taiwan and in the Chinese jurisdictions of Hong Kong and Macau. Its observance was reinstated as a public holiday in mainland China in 2008, after having been previously suppressed by the ruling Communist Party in 1949.

Duanwu Festival

The Duanwu Festival (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Duānwǔjié), also known as Dragon Boat Festival, is a traditional and statutory holiday associated with Chinese and other East Asian and Southeast Asian societies as well. It is a public holiday in Taiwan, where it is known by the Mandarin name DuānwǔJié, as well as in Hong Kong and Macau, where it is known by the Cantonese name Tuen Ng Jit. In 2008, the festival was restored in China as an official national holiday. The festival is also celebrated in countries with significant Chinese populations, such as in Singapore and Malaysia. The festival occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar on which the Chinese calendar is based. This is the source of the alternative name of Double Fifth. In 2009 this falls on May 28 and in 2010 on June 16. The focus of the celebrations includes eating zongzi, which are large rice wraps, drinking realgar wine, and racing dragon boats.
In May 2009, the Chinese government nominated the festival for inclusion in UNESCO's global "Intangible Cultural Heritage" list, partly in response to South Korea's successful nomination of the Dano festival in 2005 which China criticized as "cultural robbery".

Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, Zhongqiu Festival, or in Chinese, Zhongqiujie (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Zhōngqīujié), is a popular harvest festival celebrated by people in the Chinese influenced, or Sinitic world, dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty. It is also celebrated by the Vietnamese, Koreans, and Japanese in different forms. It was first called ZhongqiuJie (literally "Mid-Autumn Festival") in the Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is usually around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos under the moon together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:
• Putting pomelo rinds on one's head
• Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns
• Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Cháng'é)
• Planting Mid-Autumn trees
• Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members
• Fire Dragon Dances
• In Taiwan, since the 1980s, barbecuing meat outdoors has become a widespread way to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival