Learn to be promoted disregarding being that next year celebrates festivities , still being to get married marrying , move forward , come celebrate being accustomed to setting off fireworks down to edifice completion , shop first transaction for each day etc., as long as for expressing the happy event , people. This convention has had the history of more than 2000 years in our country. Such once recorded "thorn slap when being Chu year" the lunar New Year's Day, everybody gets out of bed right away numerously and confusedly when the first one time of crow, let off firecrackers within oneself courtyard , come to chase returning the god of plague evil spirit. Did not had a gunpowder , did not had paper at that time, just, people uses the Baked Wheat Cake bamboo , makes that burst sound production, to chase the god of plague , this out certainly being that the toiling masses who has blindly worshiped, but has reflected ancient times but is eager about the Antaean fine desire. Have arrived at the Tang Dynasty , firecracker being called by people "exploding the pole ", is probably with one combustion more section-by-section than long bamboo pole , continue sending out sound of exploding. The Nanchang poet comes to a swan's verse: "New Style fires half just now , the small pavilion explodes just like getting together pole ash ". Accommodating oneself to writing is the scene burning a bamboo pole in the Spring Festival that time. The family who makes pills of immortatily afterwards, has been tested process ceaseless chemistry , has discovered saliter , yellow sulfur sum charcoal congregating together being able to arouse burning and exploding , has invented a gunpowder thereupon. Somebody sets off gunpowder dress within the thick bamboo tube , sound is bigger, feasible Baked Wheat Cake bamboo basic change happened in this one antiquited convention. Have appeared among the people already when Northern Song Dynasty, to use roll of paper to be wrapping a gunpowder's setting off a thing , have still had the red loud and double-bang firecracker difference , have switched over "to explode to depend on " , to switch over to be "firecracker" the day afer tomorrow.
The Chinese New Year is now popularly known as the Spring Festival because it starts from the Begining of Spring (the first of the twenty-four terms in coodination with the changes of Nature). Its origin is too old to be traced. Several explanations are hanging around. All agree, however, that the word Nian, which in modern Chinese solely means year, was originally the name of a monster beast that started to prey on people the night before the beginning of a new year.
One legend goes that the beast Nian had a very big mouth that would swallow a great many people with one bite. People were very scared. One day, an old man came to their rescue, offering to subdue Nian. To Nian he said, I hear say that you are very capable, but can you swallow the other beasts of prey on earth instead of people who are by no means of your worthy opponents? So, it did swallow many of the beasts of prey on earth that also harrassed people and their domestic animals from time to time.
After that, the old man disappeared riding the beast Nian. He turned out to be an immortal god. Now that Nian is gone and other beasts of prey are also scared into forests, people begin to enjoy their peaceful life. Before the old man left, he had told people to put up red paper decorations on their windows and doors at each year's end to scare away Nian in case it sneaked back again, because red is the color the beast feared the most.
From then on, the tradition of observing the conquest of Nian is carried on from generation to generation. The term Guo Nian, which may mean Survive the Nian becomes today Celebrate the (New) Year as the word guo in Chinese having both the meaning of pass-over and observe. The custom of putting up red paper and firing fire-crackers to scare away Nian should it have a chance to run loose is still around. However, people today have long forgotten why they are doing all this, except that they feel the color and the sound add to the excitement of the celebration.