Chinese New Year

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Happy New Year!

I'm not going to pretend I know very much about China, the Chinese culture, or Chinese New Year celebrations, because anything I do know has been gleaned from little bits of research over the years. When my kids were younger, there were several years when we took the opportunity of Chinese New Year to focus a bit on the celebration, learn a bit about it, and have a bit of fun with it ourselves.

Unlike our western (or Gregorian) calendar, the traditional Chinese calendar is based on a lunisolar year. That means the dates are based on both the phase of the moon and the time of the solar year. So the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year. In 2019, it begins on February 5th. The Spring Festival celebration kicks off on New Years Eve and continues for fifteen days, ending with the Lantern Festival. During the days of New Years celebrations, people display traditional decorations, and get together with family. In fact, this is the favored time for family reunions, and it's very important to visit grandparents and other elders. Shopping, fireworks, and visiting tourist destinations are also part of the festivities.

One of the traditional ways of decorating is to display paper cuttings in windows. These folk art "window flowers" are on display throughout the year, but especially during the Spring Festival. Templates of simplified Chinese papercuts can be found online, and you can create some of your own. We've done it a few times in the past, and it was an activity in a co-op class Kennady was in many years ago.

From my post: Virtual Refrigerator - Chinese Paper-Cutting 

If you've ever cut out paper snowflakes to decorate during the winter, you've got a bit of experience with something very similar to Chinese paper-cutting. Paper as we know it was a creation of a Chinese court official in about 100AD. At first paper was expensive so only the wealthiest or royal Chinese people could afford it for crafting paper cuttings. As paper became more affordable, all classes of society participated and paper cutting became an important folk art. Today, at festival times, cut paper designs are sold and are given as gifts and greetings. Traditional designs feature animals (often pandas, dragons, or tigers), birds, or flowers. For the Chinese New Year, the animal sign for the year is a popular choice. The traditional color of paper used is red because it represents good luck and success.

Another type of decoration is calligraphy on red paper. "Fu" which means "happiness and good fortune" is very popular. These can be displayed on walls, doors, or windows. Similar designs are sometimes added to the paper lanterns used in the Lantern Festival. Lanterns can be basic shapes or more elaborate, like lotuses or even dragons. People might write poetry or wishes on the lanterns before releasing them, hoping that their wishes will come true in the new year.

Chinese calligraphy is an art form, don't you think? We also tried that in our co-op class and at home, painting a few Chinese characters.

 During family visits, Chinese grandparents and elders give younger relatives gifts of money in red envelopes. Red because it's a lucky color! Long ago, Chinese currency was in the form of coins with a hole in the middle. They could be strung on a red cord as a gift. Eventually that tradition changed to red paper or red envelopes to hold paper money.

So with all the red and gold decorations and symbols, golden colored fruits are popular during the Spring Festival. Favorites include kumquats, tangerines, mandarin oranges, and peaches. Also the Chinese character for tangerine looks similar to the character for luck!

This isn't specifically related to the Chinese New Year, but it's a favorite piece of Chinese-inspired art, and it does feature red and gold - Virtual Refrigerator - Chinese Horse.

Chinese Horse by KAT, April 2017

If you want to try creating this Chinese Horse for yourself (or maybe a simpler Chinese Dragon or more advanced Chinese Lion print), the full instructions are available at SchoolhouseTeachers.com along with the entire collection of lessons from ArtAchieve - Achieving Art Success with ArtAchieve. We really like the ArtAchieve lessons! They are inspired by folk art from all over the world, and range from very simple for young children or beginner artists to more complex projects for teens or artists with more experience. All projects are designed to be completed with simple art supplies you likely already have or are easy and relatively inexpensive to acquire.

And yes, there's a pricing special at SchoolhouseTeachers.com right now. For the month of February, you can use the coupon code ONEDOLLAR to try your first month for just a buck, or use ONES to get an entire year plus the Schoolhouse Planner for $111. SchoolhouseTeachers.com membership gives you access to all 300+ courses in all subject areas and for all grade levels, plus lots of other resources too! 

The paper-cutting crafts (and lots of other ideas) came from the book Geography Through Art which is a favorite in our homeschool. It's a combination of cultural geography information and art projects inspired by different cultures and folk art from around the world. (See my post My Favorite Geography Resource for more details.)

 

And check out the website Chinese New Year 2019 for lots more about this celebration and its history and traditions.

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