Modern ways to celebrate Chinese New Year

Celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, has evolved over the past years with the rapid development of technology as well as Chinese people's constantly changing understanding of traditional culture and entertainment. In this exciting video, we'll take you on a fun ride to explore new ways to celebrate the Spring Festival.

Grab digital red envelopes

With Chinese New Year fast approaching, you'd better get prepared for a red envelope blitz on China's booming social media app, WeChat.

Grabbing and sending red envelopes on WeChat is a fun and rewarding experience during the festival, as it is a good way to experience Chinese culture and maintain relationships with your Chinese friends. Don't take it too seriously if you don't grab one in time, just ask your friends to send out more! But remember, don't be the guy who just grabs but doesn't send. Are you ready to welcome a shower of red envelopes? Have fun!

Collect five ‘Fu’ cards

If you see someone stop in front of a Chinese character 福 (Fu) and raise his phone, don't be surprised – he is collecting five virtual “Fu” cards in Alipay. Each ‘Fu’ card represents a different blessing. Once you successfully collect all the five different types of Fu, you can split a 200 million yuan prize with the other participants.

The five cards can be accessed by using your phone to scan “Fu”, which means ‘good luck’, and a range of other methods such as playing the “Ant Forest Game”. You can also use any of your extra cards to exchange for those you need from your friends. Though the share of the winnings may not be that large, it’s undoubtedly a fun way to feel the joy of the Spring Festival. Get out to find more “Fu”!

E-cracker

Setting off firecrackers and fireworks during the Spring Festival is an important New Year custom. In traditional Chinese culture, firecrackers were originally used to scare away evil spirits. Today, lighting firecrackers is a major custom that is observed to celebrate the coming of the New Year, and also a way to enhance the festive atmosphere.

But to avoid air pollution, electronic crackers, or E-crackers, might also be a great plan B that will do the trick, as they do not emit smoke but do produce light and sound, making them a fun but environmentally friendly option.

Write Spring Festival Couplets

An important Spring Festival decoration with black or golden characters written on red paper, Spring Festival Couplets are composed of a pair of poetry lines vertically pasted on both sides of the front door and a horizontal scroll affixed above the doorframe.

Writing and pasting Spring Festival couplets expresses people's joy for the festival and wishes for a better life in the coming year.

But have you ever tried writing Spring Festival couplets in English? Watch the video to find out how our editor from Germany does it.

Watch the Spring Festival Gala

On New Year's Eve, when you're enjoying being together with your family, don't miss the Spring Festival Gala, the most-watched annual show on the planet. A galaxy of big-time stars will take to the stage, but it will also be full of moments that netizens are guaranteed to make fun of. As a result, it's becoming a new tradition to browse social media platforms like Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, to see how people mock the gala.

The show also coins buzzwords and slangs for the year to come. So, if you want to be part of the hottest topics of discussion with your Chinese friends, take a seat in front of the TV on New Year's Eve.