Learn 5 biggest festivals in China
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| Hi! I’m Rui. Welcome to Chinese Top Words. Today, I’m going to introduce to you 5 biggest festivals in China. |
| 1. 春节 (Chūn jié) "Spring Festival" |
| 春节是中国最重要的传统节日。 (Chūnjié shì Zhōngguó zuì zhòngyào de chuántǒng jiérì.) "The Spring Festival is the most important traditional festival in China." |
| As what I just said, it is the most important festival in China. No matter where you live, how far away you’re from home, basically, you have to, you need to, you want to go back home to have your family around, to spend this holiday together. |
| If you have kid, if you haven’t got a job yet, if you haven’t got married yet, probably, you will get 红包 (hóng bāo) from your parents. So it’s a very happy festival and we’ll have feast and food, so many kinds of food with your family together and drink and eat. It’s the happiest day in China for everybody. |
| 红包 (Hóng bāo) is a red envelope, a small red envelope and there’s money inside and you will get it from your parents or grandma or grandpa so it’s like a best wish for your next year. It’s lucky money. |
| 2. 元宵节 (Yuánxiāo jié) "Lantern Festival" |
| 中国人在元宵节里吃汤圆赏花灯。 (Zhōngguórén zài Yuánxiāojié li chī tāngyuán shǎng huādēng.) "Chinese people eat glutinous rice balls and watch lanterns during the Lantern Festival." |
| Okay, frankly speaking, I’m a huge fan of Japanese dessert, but this Chinese glutinous rice ball is one of my favorites and I couldn’t easily get it in Japan. So this is like a mochi rice, the white one, and the filling is very hot in sesame sauce. So when you bite it, the sesame sauce will smoothly go to your mouth and it’s hot and sweet and smells so good because you know how sesame smells and most importantly, it’s hot. Because so many Japanese desserts, they are cold, but sometimes, I have a craving for hot desserts so this rice ball, I really highly recommend it. Not only sesame filling, sometimes, they have hazelnut filling and they have meat filling. A good variety of fillings, but the sesame sauce is the best. Please try it when you go to China. It doesn’t have to be Lantern Festival. It can be anytime of the year. It’s easily available in a supermarket. |
| 3. 清明节 (Qīngmíng jié) "Qing Ming Jie" |
| 在清明节祭祖扫墓是中国的传统习俗。 (Zài Qīngmíngjié jìzǔ sǎomù shì Zhōngguó de chuántǒng xísú.) "At the Qingming Festival, ancestor worship and grave visits are traditional Chinese customs." |
| Another thing we do, we will bring the bouquet of chrysanthemum to the grave to show our respect for the dead people. |
| 4. 端午节 (Duānwǔ jié) "Dragon Boat Festival" |
| 很多地方在端午节那天会有赛龙舟活动。 (Hěnduō dìfāng zài duānwǔjié nàitiān huì yǒu sàilóngzhōu huódòng.) "The dragon boat races will be held in many places during the Dragon Boat Festival." |
| So during the Dragon Boat Festival, I’m not a fan of watching the dragon boat races, but I really, really like the food which we eat during that festival. It’s called 粽子 (zòngzi) so it’s also mochi rice. I love mochi rice. I cannot get tired of mochi rice, sticky rice. So it’s a mochi rice in like this kind of form and it’s wrapped up by the bamboo leaves, but different from 汤圆 (tāngyuán), it’s sweet. 汤圆 (Tāngyuán) is sweet which we eat on Lantern’s Day, on Lantern’s Festival, but this one can be salty and very oily, but that oily is very good oily like a good balance between the sticky rice and the filling. Usually, it’s with one egg yolk and meat pork. It’s very delicious. I strongly recommend it so I guess Chinese are very good at making sticky rice. |
| 5. 国庆节 (Guóqìng jié) "National Day" |
| 国庆节有长假期。 (Guóqìngjié yǒu cháng jiàqī.) "National Day is a long holiday." |
| So in China, Chinese National Day is on the first of October. It is a long holiday, but it’s also a very crowded holiday so even if you have a holiday when you’re working in China, maybe you would prefer to stay at home because people will take advantage of this holiday and travel to the places you want to go to so it’s really, really crowded. |
| Thank you for watching today’s Top Chinese Words. Let us know what interesting or special festival in your culture in your comments. Thank you. “Bye!” 再见! (Zàijiàn!) |
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