Saturday, December 3, 2011

An Introductory Insight Into Chinese New Years

3:25 AM
By Steve Chung


We will hereby see the characteristics of the Chinese symbol that make them honorable and their association with the important occasion of Chinese New Year.

The two most vital ingredients of the Chinese culture are the pictures of the Chinese dragon and the auspicious event of the Chinese New Year. They have been an indispensable part of the Chinese culture for thousands of years now and continue even to the present day. Besides, these two things have an uncanny link between them.

The dragon has become a symbol which is immediately linked to the Chinese culture. The west has come to know of this dragon symbol from martial art flicksand art work from China. For the Chinese people, this symbol of dragon is a highly honorable mythological animal that is respected for its rarity, magnificence and spiritual powers.

However, keeping honor of the Chinese traditions, one must know that the Chinese New Year event is not celebrated on the same day as the western world or for that matter when the entire world celebrates. This is because, the rest of the world follows the Gregorian solar calendar whereas the Chinese always followed the lunar calendar. Hence, the New Year day follows the cycle of the moon and falls on a different day from the western New Year day.

In the event of New Year, the Chinese people are incredibly and especially high on joyful spirit and various kinds of revelry are seen. To indicate the change of time with the New Year, Chinese have a unique tradition of associating animal symbols to this change. There are twelve animals in total and these twelve animal signs are repeated every twelfth year. So the year of dragon comes back into action with renewed spirituality after every twelve years.

The Chinese New Year of the dragon represents great power. As it is the image of the dragon is taken as a symbol of auspicious power and anger if you will. The anger of the Chinese dragon is somehow always justified hence it has to do with correcting the erring. In that sense the angry dragon is not exactly evil. Rather the symbol is meant to be inspiring for society.

Chinese people think that the streets have rights over you. When you are walking on the streets and come across evil the task of stopping it falls on you if you have the strength or with your speech if nothing else. If you are unable to stop it then at least recognize the evil act to be wrong.

The raging image of a dragon actually wants to keep the evil away It actually represents the suppression of wrong doers and motivates people to follow a right path of honesty and truthful livelihood. It encourages in doing good and avoiding evil. The Chinese New Year symbol of the Dragon seeks in bringing about a change through peaceful ways and through festive means.




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