The Chinese holiday “Duānwǔ Jié” is often called the Dragon Boat Festival, but the name means “Festival of the 5th day of the 5th month”. You can read a little about the history and customs this festival on this website. The two most popular activities on Duānwǔ Jié are: watching dragon boat races and eating zongzi. Zongzi i...

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A traditional song of greeting and merriment is the Gong Xi song. Chinese Pinyin English每条大街小巷Měi tiáo dàjiē xiǎo xiàngEach small street and large street 每个人的嘴里Měigè rénde zuǐ lǐIn everyone’s mouth 见面第一句话Jiànmiàn dìyī jù huàThe first sentence on meeting 就是恭喜恭喜Jiùshì gōngxǐ gōngxǐIs Greetings greet...

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Chinese people follow two calendars. They use the Solar (Gregorian) calendar for daily life, and the Lunar calendar for festivals and holidays. The sun and the moon are not in synch, which is why Spring festival never falls on the same date twice in a row. This year it is on Feb 5. Spring festival actually lasts for 15 days, from the new moon to the ful...

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Chinese people celebrate the new year, just like we do … with lots of fireworks. You probably know that fireworks were invented in China, so the Chinese fireworks are (am just guessing here) more than 1000 times more plentiful in China. However, in recent years Shanghai has restricted personal fireworks due to pollution concerns. Audio Chinese Pi...

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If you find yourself in China in December you maybe surprised how eagerly stores and shops embrace the “Christmas Spirit”. However, their commercial enthusiasm is always somewhat awkwardly cute. This photo of bearded lady Santa’s kind of sums it up for me. These ladies are from Shenyang in the NE of China. They are actually warming up ...

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