Far and away the most important holiday in China is the Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese Lunar New Year. To the Chinese people it is as important as Christmas to the West. The dates for this annual celebration are determined by the lunar calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, so the timing of the holiday varies from late January to early February. This year, the Chinese New Year Day is on January 24th.

    Preparations for the New Year begin the final days of the last moon, when most families clean their homes, pay their debts, cut their hair and buy new clothes. Houses are festooned with paper scrolls bearing auspicious poetry. People also burn incense at home and in the temples to pay respect to their ancestors and to ask the gods for good health in the coming months.

    On New Year's Eve, all the members of families come together to feast. Jiaozi (dumpling), is popular in the North, while southerners favor a sticky sweet glutinous rice pudding called "Nian Gao". At midnight on New Year's Eve, people used to set off fire-crackers to drive away the evil spirits and to greet the arrival of the new year. In an instant whole cities were engulfed in the deafening noise of the firecrackers.