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New Clothes

Spring Festival is one of the most important festivals in China and the most important among the traditional ones. Clothing mainly featuring the color red is commonly worn throughout the Chinese New Year because it is believed that red will scare away evil spirits and bad fortune. In addition, people typically wear new clothes from head to toe to symbolize a new beginning in the new year.

This tradition has a long history since the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and it has become one of the symbols of Spring Festival. How does this custom begin? We have to start from the history of the Spring Festival.

Ancient people created the Chinese calendar by observing the natural cycle of the moon and plants, and celebrated at the first day of first lunar month for the great harvest and greeting the coming year. For thousands of years numerous customs have been connected with the Spring Festival, such as cleaning the house, sticking New Year pictures, pasting Spring Festival couplets on the gate posts or door panels before the Spring Festival, in addition to new clothes. All these “desire for new” practices reflect people’s wish of a better new life in the next year.

In the past, be able to wear new clothes is the most wonderful dream of a new life because of material deprivation, so it has a special meaning during Spring Festival, especially for children, with the intention of mood changing. Together with the development of material, the importance of wearing new clothes has been weakening.


New Year Customs


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