What You Can and Can't Do on the First Day of the Lunar New Year

After New Year's Eve comes the first day of the lunar new year, which is Spring Festival in the traditional sense.

In my hometown, there are lots of things you have to do and things you can't do.

Starting from New Year's Eve, the things you have to get done are:

1. Putting Things Up

On New Year's Eve, the couplets, the door gods, and the "fu" characters all have to be put up properly, and the two red lanterns in front of the main door have to be hung too. Each of these has its own special meaning.

The couplets express good wishes for the future and stand for seeing out the old and welcoming the new. The door gods go on the main door to ward off evil and disaster and keep the household safe. The character "fu" stands for happiness and good fortune. It's pasted upside down on the wall, because "upside down" sounds like "arrived" in Chinese, so it means good fortune has arrived.

The red lanterns stand for reunion, celebration, brightness, and prosperity. Hung under the eaves, they're meant to light up the road ahead and bring a red-lantern kind of prosperity.

2. Firecrackers

You set off one roll of red firecrackers on New Year's Eve and another first thing on Spring Festival morning, two rolls in all.

The ones on New Year's Eve are called the closing-door firecrackers. They're mainly meant to scare off the Nian beast and say goodbye to the old year. The ones set off when you open the door on the morning of the first day are called the opening-door firecrackers. They're mainly meant to welcome the new year and pray for good luck, standing for a new year that opens well, booming and thriving, with everything going smoothly.

3. Staying Up

Staying up means the whole family gathers on New Year's Eve and stays awake all night. My family doesn't go all the way with this, but even we early sleepers almost always stay up past midnight on that day. And that night, every light in the house is turned on and stays on until dawn.

The reason is the same as for the New Year's Eve firecrackers: the Nian beast is afraid of noise and light, so this drives away evil and prays for long life for the elders.

4. Glutinous Rice Balls First Thing in the Morning

When you get up on Spring Festival morning, eggs and glutinous rice balls are the core build. You can't do without them.

Glutinous rice balls, naturally, stand for the family being together and whole.

5. Breaking off a branch from the hills and bringing it home.

The villagers call this broken-off branch a "golden stick." The idea is that the bigger the "golden stick" you bring home, the bigger your fortune will be in the future.

This year I didn't go up the hill to find one anymore, but my little brother did.

6. Getting Out for a Walk

On the first day of the lunar new year, you have to get out and walk around. You can't stay holed up at home.

This is called "walking the spring," or "going out for great luck and meeting the god of joy." You go out on this day to welcome joy and good fortune and get off to a lucky start. It also clears away bad luck, says goodbye to the gloom of the old days, and lets you breathe in the fresh air of the new year.

Then what are the things you can't do?

1. Saying unlucky things.

"No unlucky words" covers a lot. Words with a directly negative meaning, like death, bad, or unwell, and all kinds of words with negative hints are off limits.

2. Cleaning and bathing.

On the first day of the new year, trash takes on the meaning of "wealth" and "fortune." All the trash made at home from New Year's Eve to the first day is a symbol of wealth and good fortune. If you sweep it out and throw it away, you're sweeping your wealth out the door and throwing your good fortune away.

Bathing works the same way. Bathing washes off your good luck and fortune, washing away a whole year of luck and wealth, so you can't bathe, and above all you can't wash your hair.

3. No afternoon nap

To be honest, my plan for this afternoon was to take a nap and then get up and write. But my mom told me you can't nap on the first day of the new year. I was really surprised. I even called my grandma to ask, and she also said no napping on the first day, and told me to go out and have some fun.

I looked it up. The main reason you can't nap on the first day is that sleeping during the day easily invites sickness, leaving you weak and sickly all year.

But it seems very few places still keep this taboo. For me, napping is really a matter of personal habit. Most people probably don't sleep well the night before, what with staying up and firecrackers going off everywhere, so a nap on the afternoon of the first day is definitely a good idea.

It's just that this afternoon I chose to go out for a stroll and play some family poker with my cousin, so I didn't nap.

Honestly, I didn't notice until I listed it all out. Only by writing it down carefully like this did I realize my hometown still keeps so many Spring Festival customs and taboos.

Sometimes I can't tell whether customs like these are the best of our culture or its dross. Either way, we've followed them year after year all this time.

But I think, just as taboos like not napping are fading away, customs only live on if people keep them. Things like not sweeping and not bathing for a day, or going out for a walk, most people see as having good meanings and not being hard to do. So why not?

That's probably why these customs have been passed down to this day.

Take putting up Spring Festival couplets and "fu" characters. Lots of city families now put couplets and "fu" characters on their doors too. It's a way of life that has evolved from traditional custom.

And in the future, as China's population becomes more urban, traditional culture will probably keep getting simpler, like putting up couplets, and fit more and more with modern people's way of life and ideas.

I'm not someone who's against traditional culture. What I've always opposed are only the customs and traditions that suppress human nature. Choose the good and follow it, and change what isn't good.