Source: chinaculture.org

01-17-2008 17:10

The most important festival of the year in China is the Spring Festival, which starts from December 8th on the lunar calendar and lasts until January 15th. There are many customs people observe during the festival, and some are related to specific dates.

On the first day of the Spring Festival, many families make a sweet porridge of glutinous rice, millet, seeds of Job's tears, jujubes, lotus seeds, beans, longan and ginko, called 'laba'. 'Laba' is used to worship the Buddha and is offered to relatives and neighbors.

December 23rd or 24th of the lunar calendar is 'preliminary eve', when people offer sacrifices to the kitchen god. The story goes that the kitchen god reports back to the Jade Emperor in the heavens on the family's behavior on this day, so in order to keep him quiet, the offer sacrifices to stuff his mouth full to keep him from talking or telling the Jade Emperor bad things about the family. If he makes a good report to the Emperor, the family will have a good harvest, good health, and good luck in the coming year.

On December 24th of the lunar calendar people often do 'spring cleaning', wiping and cleaning out everything in the house - clothes, bedclothes and utensils - in order to get rid of bad luck for the coming year. Debts are also settled on this day.