CHINESE NEW YEAR VIDEO

Cokato Elementary (my (Annalicia's) mom's school) and my school have started a video exchange. At this point, we've both just sent each other one video each, but it's been pretty fun! The video my mom sent my school focused a lot on Christmas. It was super cute! The video some people from my school made to send back is centered on Chinese New Year. It is also super cute! (It's hard for videos not to be super cute when kindergartners and first graders are the stars...regardless of what language they speak or what country they're from!) :)

Chinese New Year would be comparable to Christmas in the States in terms of its importance to the culture. We've been told that Chinese New Year is by far the most important holiday for most Taiwanese people. Chinese New Year is the celebration of the lunar calendar new year. So, it always starts on the first day of the first month of the lunar year. With this being said, it doesn't fall on the same date on the Western calendar each year. For example, this year Chinese New Year starts on February 14th (it's very late...so we've been told), last year it started on January 26th and next year it will start on February 3rd.

Family gatherings and celebrations last for 3-15 days. The interesting part about the family gatherings is they have a specific flow. For example, the first day of Chinese New Year is spent with the husband's side of the family and the second day is always spent with the wife's side of the family.

As you probably can imagine, Chinese New Year is a holiday full of traditions. So, if you're interested in finding out more about it, you can click on the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

I've also included the link to get you to the video my school made about Chinese New Year. Enjoy! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ2ni_DqDPk

Here's a few things you might what to know regarding the content of the video:
--You're going to hear students say certain phrases over and over such as, "May a river of gold flow into your pockets." These phrases are traditional Chinese New Year greetings.
--The Lion Dance you'll see at the end of the video is done throughout the year for different occasions. So, it's not strictly a Chinese New Year thing, but it's often done around this holiday.
--If you're looking to learn a Chinese word, tune your ears to hear the word "qui la". This word is said quite often in the video and it means "happy".