The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together, just like Christmas in the West.
The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month. It is a national carnival to welcome the spring after a long and gloomy winter, and to celebrate the past year's harvest with good food, festivities,dragon dancing and firecrackers.
Many customs accompany the Spring Festival. Some are still followed today, but others have weakened. On the 8th day of the 12th lunar month, many families make laba porridge, a delicious kind of porridge made with glutinous rice, millet, seeds of Job's tears, jujube berries, lotus seeds, beans, longan and gingko. People attach great importance to Spring Festival Eve. At that time, all family members eat dinner together.The meal is more luxurious than usual. Dishes such as chicken, fish and bean curd cannot be excluded, for in Chinese, their pronunciations, respectively "ji", "yu" and "doufu," mean auspiciousness, abundance and richness.
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