chūnjié: 春节 - Spring Festival, Chinese New Year

Keywords: chunjie, chūn jié, 春节, Spring Festival, Chinese New Year, CNY, Lunar New Year, Chinese holidays, Chinese traditions, guonian, family reunion, red envelope, year of the dragon, year of the rabbit.

Summary: 春节 (Chūnjié), known as the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, is the most significant and widely celebrated holiday in China. It marks the beginning of the new year on the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This multi-day celebration is centered around family reunion, feasting, and ancient traditions aimed at warding off evil spirits and welcoming good fortune. For anyone learning about Chinese culture, understanding a bit about the traditions, food, and vocabulary of 春节 is essential.

Pinyin (with tone marks): chūnjié

Part of Speech: Noun

HSK Level: HSK 3

Concise Definition: The Spring Festival; Chinese New Year.

In a Nutshell: Think of 春节 as the cultural equivalent of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year's Eve all rolled into one massive, week-long event. It's the most important time for Chinese families to reunite, no matter how far apart they live. The holiday is filled with a unique atmosphere of nostalgia, hope, and vibrant celebration, symbolized by the color red, loud firecrackers (historically), and special foods.

春 (chūn): This character means “spring.” You can see the sun radical (日) at the bottom, suggesting sunshine returning and warming the earth, causing plants to grow. It represents renewal, new beginnings, and vitality.

节 (jié): This character means “festival,” “holiday,” or “joint” (like in a bamboo stalk). It represents a specific node or significant point in time. The top part (艹) is a grass/plant radical, and the bottom part (即) originally depicted a person kneeling before a food vessel, suggesting a ritual or ceremony.

Together, 春节 (chūnjié) literally translates to “Spring Festival,” the festival that marks the end of winter and the arrival of spring in the traditional calendar.

The Great Migration: The core value of 春节 is family reunion (团圆, tuányuán). This is so culturally ingrained that it triggers the world's largest annual human migration, known as 春运 (Chūnyùn). Hundreds of millions of people travel across the country to be with their families for New Year's Eve dinner (年夜饭, niányèfàn). This emphasizes the collectivist nature of Chinese society and the deep importance of filial piety (孝, xiào).

Comparison to Christmas: In the West, Christmas is a major family holiday. However, 春节 is arguably more central to its culture. While Christmas is a fixed date (Dec 25), 春节's date varies, falling between January 21st and February 20th. Christmas is primarily a one-or-two-day event for many, whereas 春节 celebrations traditionally last for 15 days, from New Year's Eve (除夕, Chúxī) to the Lantern Festival (元宵节, Yuánxiāojié). While both involve feasts and gift-giving, 春节 gifts are often practical, with money in red envelopes (红包, hóngbāo) being the most common, especially for children and unmarried adults.

Renewal and Fortune: The festival is rich with symbolism aimed at sweeping away bad luck from the past year and welcoming good fortune. This is seen in traditions like house cleaning before the festival, setting off firecrackers (now often banned in cities) to scare away evil spirits, and wearing new, often red, clothes.

Greetings: The most common greeting you'll hear is “春节快乐!” (Chūnjié kuàilè!) - Happy Spring Festival! Another very popular one is “新年好” (Xīnnián hǎo) - New Year's Goodness!

Asking about Plans: It's common to ask friends and colleagues about their plans: “你春节怎么过?” (Nǐ Chūnjié zěnme guò? - How are you spending the Spring Festival?) or “你春节回家吗?” (Nǐ Chūnjié huí jiā ma? - Are you going home for Spring Festival?).

Social Media: During 春节, social media feeds are flooded with pictures of family dinners (年夜饭), greetings, and people sending and receiving digital 红包 (hóngbāo) through apps like WeChat.

Business: Almost everything in China shuts down for at least a week, known as the “Golden Week.” It's a critical time for businesses to give year-end bonuses and gifts to employees and clients to maintain good relationships (关系, guānxi).

“Spring Festival” vs. “Lunar New Year”: While many Westerners know it as “Chinese New Year,” the official name in China is “春节” (Spring Festival). The term “Lunar New Year” is a broader, more inclusive term, as the holiday is also celebrated in other Asian countries like Vietnam (Tết) and South Korea (Seollal), though on different dates or with different traditions. Using “Spring Festival” or “春节” is most accurate when referring specifically to the celebration in China.

过年 (guònián) - A more colloquial way to say “celebrate the New Year.” It literally means “to pass the year.”

除夕 (Chúxī) - Chinese New Year's Eve, the night of the most important family reunion dinner.

年夜饭 (niányèfàn) - The grand reunion dinner held on New Year's Eve (除夕).

红包 (hóngbāo) - The red envelopes filled with money given as gifts, symbolizing good luck.

拜年 (bàinián) - The act of paying a visit to relatives and friends to extend New Year's greetings.

春联 (chūnlián) - Red paper couplets with poetic verses about spring and good fortune, pasted on either side of a doorway.

春运 (Chūnyùn) - The “Spring Transportation” period, a 40-day travel frenzy around the holiday.

元宵节 (Yuánxiāojié) - The Lantern Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month and marks the end of the Spring Festival celebrations.

生肖 (shēngxiào) - The Chinese Zodiac, the 12-year cycle of animals associated with one's birth year.