The first day of the first lunar month is New Year in the Chinese lunar calendar. Among traditional Chinese festivals, this is the most important day, which indicting ending of winter and the begining of spring, people also call it Spring Festival.

Chinese have many traditional customs relating to Spring Festival. From the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month, people start to prepare for the event. Every family will undertake a thorough cleaning, do their Spring Festival shopping, create paper-cuts for window decoration, put up New Year pictures, write Spring Festival couplets, make New Year cakes, and also prepare all kinds of food to bid farewell to the old and usher in the new.

New Year's Eve is the time for a happy reunion of all family members, when they sit around table to have a sumptuous New Year's Eve dinner, talking and laughing, until daybreak, which is called "staying up to see the year out". When the bell tolls midnight on New Year's Eve, people eat dumplings. in ancient times, midnight was called zishi - a period of the day from 11 pm to 1 am, and 12pm was called zizheng when the old year ended and the New Year began. Dumplings are eaten because it sounds the same as "change of the year and the day" in Chinese.

From the first day of the lunar year, people visit relatives and friends, to greet each other, which is an important custom for Spring Festival.

Setting off firecrackers is the favorite activity of children in Spring Festival. According to legend, this could drive off evil spirits. The continuous sound of firecrackers can be heard everywhere, adding to the atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity.