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Chinese Holiday Calendar
Entries shaded reddish are Chinese calendrical events.
Off-white shading indicates Western-style calendrical events.
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| Event | Chinese | Western | Comments | |||
| Before New Year's Eve | until 12.31 | until 01/28 | Clean your house from top to bottom! Get all that dust out of there! Put away your cleaning stuff on New Year's Eve so the good luck of the New Year can't be swept away! | |||
| New Year | 01.01 | 01/29 | The first day of the Lunar New Year is "the welcoming of the gods of the heavens and earth." Many people abstain from meat on the first day of the new year because it is believed that this will ensure long and happy lives for them. Month of The Beginning of Spring. |
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| Birthday of All Dogs | 01.02 | 01/30 | Also a day for prayer to the gods and to the ancestors of the family. Be extra kind to dogs! | |||
| 01.03 01.04 |
01/31 02/01 |
The third and fourth days are for the sons-in-laws to pay respect to their parents-in-law. | ||||
| Po Woo | 01.05 | 02/02 | Day to honor the God Of Wealth. Stay home. Don't go out to visit family or friends. Try to take the day off. You wouldn't want to miss the God Of Wealth's annual visit, would you? | |||
| 01.06 01.10 |
02/03 02/07 |
On the sixth to the tenth day, the Chinese visit their relatives and friends freely. They also visit the temples to pray for good fortune and health. | ||||
| Birthday of All Humans | 01.07 | 02/04 | Also the day for farmers to show off their produce. Something about a seven-vegetable drink (yeah, tomato's a fruit, right?) is also done up by farmers to celebrate the day. Noodles are eaten to promote longevity and raw fish for success. | |||
| 01.08 | 02/05 | On the eighth day the Fujian people have another family reunion dinner, and at midnight they pray to Tian Gong, the God of Heaven. | ||||
| 01.09 | 02/06 | The ninth day is for making offerings to the Jade Emperor. | ||||
| 01.10 01.12 |
02/07 02/09 |
The tenth through the twelfth are days that friends and relatives should be invited for dinner. | ||||
| 01.13 | 02/10 | After so much rich food, on the thirteenth day you should have simple rice congee (porridge) and mustard greens (choi sum) to cleanse the system. | ||||
| 01.14 | 02/11 | The fourteenth day should be for preparations to celebrate the Lantern Festival which is to be held on the fifteenth night. | ||||
| Lantern Festival | 01.15 | 02/12 | Last day of Chinese New Year. This is a festival for people having fun. On the night of the festival, people go on streets with a variety of lanterns under the full moon, watching lions or dragon dancing, playing Chinese riddles and games, and lighting up firecrackers. There is really a lot of fun for the young and the old. The festival is not well celebrated in the US. The Chinese community in Seattle's International District host a yearly Lantern Festival celebration. | |||
| Month 2 | 02.01 | 02/28 | Month of The Waking of Insects. | |||
| Int'l. Working Women's Day | 02.09 | 03/08 | Interestingly, women employees will get a whole or an half paid day-off on the day while the men are at the mercy of their employers. | |||
| Month 3 | 03.01 | 03/29 | Month of Pure Brightness. | |||
| Qingming | 03.08 | 04/05 | Grave Sweeping Day. Time for paying tribute to your ancestors. | |||
| Tin Hau | 03.23 | 04/20 | Goddess of fisherman and sailors. Relevant in Seattle. | |||
| Month 4 | 04.01 | 04/28 | Month of the Beginning of Summer | |||
| May Day | 04.04 | 05/01 | No less celebrated than the New Year's Day. Employees will enjoy a paid day-off. Celebration parties in parks took the place of parades today. | |||
| Youth Day | 04.07 | 05/04 | Youth Day commemorates the beginning of the May Fourth Movement in 1919. This day is known as Literary Day in the Republic of China (Taiwan). Youth Day in the Republic of China is on March 29. |
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| Buddha's Birthday | 04.08 | 05/05 | Celebrated in East Asia on the eighth day of the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. It's a holiday in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and South Korea. | |||
| Month 5 | 05.01 | 05/27 | Month of the Grain in Ear. If you planted seeds in your garden earlier this year, this month is when they will grow the most. | |||
| Dragon Boats Festival | 05.05 | 05/31 | On the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar in 295 B.C. a virtuous minister named Wat Yuan committed suicide by drowning in the Tung Ting Lake in protest of the decadence of the court. His body was never found in spite of the local people racing out in boats trying to find him whilst, at the same time, scaring the fish with drums and throwing glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into water to feed the fish. | |||
| Children's Day | 05.06 | 06/01 | It is the most memorable day of Chinese kids all over the country. Almost all entertainment places such as cinemas, parks and children museums and palaces are open free to them. Elementary schools throw celebration parties while parents shower them with presents. | |||
| Month 6 | 06.01 | 06/26 | Month of Slight Heat. | |||
| SAR Founding Day | 06.06 | 07/01 | It marked the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 in Shanghai. It is usually characterized by front page editorials from major government newspapers. | |||
| Kwan Tai | 06.24 | 07/19 | God of War's birthday. | |||
| Month 7 | 07.01 | 07/25 | Month of The Beginning of Autumn. | |||
| Chinese Valentine's Day | 07.07 | 07/31 | Once a year all the magpies in the world take pity on the separated lovers; the Cowherd (Altair), and the Weaver Girl (Vega), and fly up into heaven to form a bridge over the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation so the lovers may be together for a single night, the seventh night of the seventh moon. The actual story is a bit more complicated htan this, but this is the basic story. |
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| PLA Founding Day | 07.08 | 08/01 | A communist-led nationalist army staged the first armed uprising in Chinese communist history against the Nationalists on August 1, 1927. It was regarded as the beginning of the Red Army (later the People's Liberation Army). Now the anniversary is often used to promote better relationships between the army and civilians, a tradition believed to have helped it beat the Nationalists during the civil war in 1949. | |||
| Hungry Ghosts Festival - First Day | 07.15 | 08/08 | The Hungry Ghosts festival is a popular occasion that is taken very seriously by the Chinese. This festival that falls on the 7th month of the lunar New Year is celebrated mainly in China and other countries like Singapore & Malaysia. It is believed by the Chinese that during this month, the gates of hell are opened to free the hungry ghosts who then wander to seek food on Earth. Some even think that the ghosts would seek revenge on those who had wronged them in their lives. The reason why the Chinese celebrate this festival is to remember their dead family members and pay tribute to them. They also feel that offering food to the deceased appeases them and wards off bad luck. Festival lasts until the end of the month. | |||
| Hungry Ghosts Festival - Last Day | 07.30 | 08/23 | The spirits return to Hell and the gates are shut until next year. | |||
| Leap Month | 07R.01 | 08/24 | Leap month occurs when no major solar term (30 degree mark) happens within a lunar month. No holidays occur within a leap month. | |||
| Month 8 | 08.01 | 09/22 | Month of White Dew. | |||
| Confucius' Birthday | 08.07 | 09/28 | Confucius (551-479 BC) is known in Chinese as Kong Fuzi, or "Virtuous Teacher Kong." His profound thinking and the centuries of commentary it spawned are central to China’s cultural system, and have strongly influenced the cultures of several other countries in the region. | |||
| National Day | 08.10 | 10/01 | It is the anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 in the wake of routing the Nationalists who have since taken refuge in Taiwan. There used to be grand parades squares of major cities of the country. Now celebrations usually take the form of parties in amusement parks by day and fire-works and grand TV ensembles during the evening. Employees enjoy two paid days-off. It is also a good occasion for many people to take a short excursion to enjoy the beauty of the golden Fall. | |||
| Mid-Autumn Festival | 08.15 | 10/06 | This festival is similar to the American Thanksgiving holiday, celebrating a bountiful harvest. Compared to many Chinese festivals that are inundated with vibrant colors and sounds, the Mid-Autumn festival remains more subdued. Traditionally celebrated outdoors under the moonlight, people eat moon cakes and gaze at the moon. In modern times, barbecues with families and friends are also common. | |||
| Month 9 | 09.01 | 10/22 | Month of Cold Dew. | |||
| Double-Nine Festival | 09.09 | 10/30 | Elder's Day. Today, the mayors in the major cities in Taiwan will visit the houses of senior citizens on Double Nines day to ensure that the next generation will remember this festival. The new generation in China don’t celebrate this festival, because this is not a fun day for young people. | |||
| Cheung Yeung | 09.09 | 10/30 | Ancestral remembrance day, similar to Qingming. It is also a day for hiking. The Cheung Yeung Festival commemorates a Han Dynasty (BC 202-AD 220) legend, which tells how a soothsayer advised Woon King that he should take his family to a high place for the entire ninth day of the ninth moon. Upon their return, the Woon family discovered all living things in their village had been slaughtered. Today, many Hong Kong families head to the hills to picnic during the Cheung Yeung Festival. | |||
| Month 10 | 10.01 | 11/21 | Month of The Beginning of Winter. | |||
| Month 11 | 11.01 | 12/20 | Month of The Great Snow. | |||
| Winter Solstice | 11.03 | 12/22 | By order of the Jade Emperor, the winter solstice must always occur in the 11th month. This is considered to be the primary Chinese calendrical rule. | |||
| Christmas | 11.06 | 12/25 | Not really a Chinese holiday, but catching on in China. | |||
| New Year's Day | 11.13 | 01/01/2007 | Not as much celebrated as it is in other parts of the world because it is overshadowed by the upcoming Chinese New Year somewhere a month away. However, employees will enjoy a paid day-off. And there will be parties everywhere, in parks, dancing halls and universities where students will leave for the winter vacation. | |||
| Month 12 | 12.01 | 01/19/2007 | Month of The Slight Cold. | |||