The Chinese New Year Festival
The Chinese New Year Festival
The Chinese New year festival is the biggest and most important festival in China. It is usually between January 30 and February 20, at the start of spring. The festival started thousands of years ago. People tell this story about it.
In China long ago,there was a monster, who lived deep at the bottom of the sea. He only came up to the beach on the night before New Year's Day to eat people and animals.
So just before that night, people from all the villages ran away to the mountains, so that the monster couldn't eat them.
One day when people were getting ready to leave the village,a poor man arrived at an old woman's house. The old woman said, "Come to the mountains with us or the monster will eat you".
The old man said with a smile,"I will stay at your house for the night. Then the monster will go away".
That night the monster came to the village. The village was dark because all the houses were empty. In the old woman's house, however, there were bright lights and red paper on the doors. The monster went up to the house. When he heard loud noises inside, he stopped. He was afraid of the colour red, lights and loud noises. Then he saw someone in the house- wearing a red coat. The monster ran back to the sea shouting in fear. He never came back again.
After that all the villagers put red paper and lights in their houses and made fireworks with loud noises. And this tradition still happens every year at the Chinese New Year festival.