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Around the New Year people greet each other with:
Traditionally, red packets ('hong bao') are passed out on Chinese New Year's Eve, and then Chinese New Year is celebrated with firecrackers. Dragon dances and lion dances take place in some streets and public places throughout the first few days of the Chinese New Year.
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated as a family affair. The families get together during this holiday. The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and traditionally includes chicken. However, the New Year's Day dinner is typically vegetarian.
The New Year season lasts fifteen days. The first three days are the most important and most often celebrated with visits to friends, family as well as greetings of good luck. The seventh day traditionally is everyone's birthday, the day when everyone grows one year older. The celebrations end on the important and colourful Lantern FestivalLantern Festival in Taiwan The Lantern Festival ( Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: yuanxiaujie) is a traditional Chinese festival/ holiday, which is celebrated by the Chinese in many countries. On the Chinese calendar (a lunar calendar), the Lantern Festiva on the evening of the 15th day of the new moon.
The date is determined by the Chinese calendar, a lunisolar calendarA lunisolar calendar is a calendar whose date indicates both the moon phase and the season. This is normally done by having a year that corresponds to a cycle of seasons and a month which corresponds to a lunation so that the day of month indicates the mo. The same calendar is used in countries that have adopted the Confucian and BuddhismTian Tan Buddha statue in Hong Kong, remind followers to practice right living. Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of Siddhrtha Gautama ( Sanskrit; in Pli, Siddhattha Gotama , who lived between approximately 563 and 483 BCE. tradition and in many cultures influenced by the ChineseThis article is on the geographic and cultural entity. For other meanings, see China (disambiguation). China ( Traditional Chinese: , Simplified Chinese: , Hanyu Pinyin: Zhongguo, Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo) is a country in continental East Asia with some oute, notably the Koreans, the Tibetans, the Vietnamese and the pagan Bulgars. Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. According to the solar calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year.
Some Chinese New Year dates (in the Gregorian calendar) are listed below (with pinyin
romanization for the animals):
| Animal | Dates | |
|---|---|---|
| Rat - Zi | 1996 February 19 | 2008 February 7 |
| Ox - Chou | 1997 February 7 | 2009 January 26 |
| Tiger - Yin | 1998 January 28 | 2010 February 14 |
| Rabbit - Mao | 1999 February 16 | 2011 February 3 |
| Dragon - Chen | 2000 February 5 | 2012 January 23 |
| Snake - Si | 2001 January 24 | 2013 February 10 |
| Horse - Wu | 2002 February 12 | 2014 January 31 |
| Goat - Wei | 2003 February 1 | 2015 February 19 |
| Monkey - Shen | 2004 January 22 | 2016 February 8 |
| Rooster - You | 2005 February 9 | 2017 January 28 |
| Dog - Xu | 2006 January 29 | 2018 February 16 |
| Pig - Hai | 2007 February 18 | 2019 February 5 |
See Chinese zodiac for a list of Chinese New Year dates over the last century.