Each and every one more or less has some childhood experience of looking forward eagerly to New Year celebrations . During the New Year holiday in China, "girls play with flowers while boys with firecrackers"; there are many tasty things to eat, colorful costumes to wear, and a most wonderful time can be had by all.

People in different places all have different ways to entertain themselves differently at festivities. For instance, they strike gongs, beat drums, perform lion dances and display dragon’s lanterns during the Spring Festival; they row dragon boats at the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month; they enjoy the moonlight at the Mid-Autumn Festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month; and they climb up mountains on the Double Ninth Day on the ninth day of the ninth month...The festive celebrations of the minority people include dialogue singing, dancing under moonlight, burning torches, splashing water on people, bull-fighting, snatching sheep or picking up the hata (ceremonial silk scarf) from horseback, horse-racing, wrestling, girl-chasing-boy games....Indeed, a great variety of entertainment. These festivals, mostly having a source in one or more legends, mystify people and bring them hope and joy. So it is not the children alone who are eager to celebrate New Year or other festival occasions. Grownups, too, feel their hearts warm and gay in these days and find it difficult to suppress their hilarious excitement.

Since ancient times, the Chinese people have adopted over a hundred kinds of calendars. The most widely observed are the Yang Li (the solar or Gregorian calendar) and the Yin li (the lunar or farming calendar). The former divides tome into four seasons according to the rotation of the sun, a year into 12 months and 365 days, with every fourth year a leap year of 366 days and the second month of the year (February) 29 days. Yang li is now in use in various countries of the world, including China.

Yin li was designed in close connection with agricultural production, so it is also known as the farming calendar, which has been in use in this country since the Xia Dynasty about three to four thousand years ago.

Yin li is actually a mixture of the solar and lunar calendars with the length of time for one rotation of the moon counted as a month and having 12 months in a common year of 354 days, or 13 months in a leap year of 384 days, in ancient China, a year was divided into 24 solar terms, each of which has three climatic signs (zheng hou, 72such signs altogether). These terms are directly related to farming and have been observed for the last several thousand years.

In China the various festivities in a year are usually calculated according to the lunar calendar developed over long years of history. These festivities and the customs observed on these occasions have strong national features and are part and parcel of the national culture we set great store by. In studying these customs, we will find that there is at least one or more anecdotes about practically every festival in China, anecdotes replete with the reminiscences of the nation’s past, of its days of joy and misery. If we look back to the past, we can better understand our present; looking into the folk customs of the traditional festivities in China is like opening up a window of history for a peep into the sentiments and life forefathers.

Chinese festivities may be classified into the following four categories:

Those commemorating an historical event or an historical figure. The Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, for instance, is said to be a day in commemoration of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan; and the Clear and Bright Festival, a day to honor the memory of Jie Zitui, who was loyal to his sovereign.

Those connected with a myth a myth or a legend. The Spring Dragon Festival, for instance, is said to be the day on which the dragon raises its head; and Double Seventh Night has a mythological and yet romantic background---the romance of the Cowherd and Weaving Maid.

Those handed down year after and developed from rites worshipping ancestors and deities. The La Ba Festival on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, for instance, is the day near the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one, on which sacrifices are offered to heaven and earth, to all deities and to one’s ancestry together, the word la itself having the meaning "together". Again, Jizao Jie is a survival of a rite offering sacrifices to the Kitchen God.

Those taking place at the end of a year to say good-bye to the old or at the beginning of a year to greet the new, festivities on which people pray for good luck, such as New Year’s Eve and the Spring Festival.

The minority peoples in China also have their unique festivities. There are festivities praying for a good harvest or celebrating one, such as the Onghor Festival of the Tibetans, the Duan Festival of the Yi people. There are festivities during which people buy and sell at a fair which also offers entertainment and amusements, such as the Mongolian people’s Nadam Fair and the Third Month Fair of the Bai people. There are also festivities with a religious background, such as the Lesser Bairam of the Hui people and the Firecrackers Festival of the Dong people. There are very interesting anecdotes about these festivities. About the Water Splashing Festival of the Dai people, for instance, a legend has it that once there as a fiendish Deil Prince who feared almost nothing---water could not drown him, fire could not destroy his, neither a sword nor a n arrow could kill him. He had seven wives in his harem, whom he took against their will. The seventh wife, a very clever woman, one day tactfully found out the secret of where he was vulnerable. In a night when he was asleep, she plucked a hair from his head, as he had said, and cut his head off with it. His head fell off and rolled down on the floor. But wherever it rolled, the place caught fire and when it rolled into a river, the river water began to boil and the fish in it died. And when it was buried, the whole place stank. So the seven women had to hold the head in their hands in turn, each for a day, and each time the take-over took place, the recipient of the head would be splashed with water. One day in heaven means a year on water on each other. So the Water Splashing Festival is a day commemorating some heroines who has helped the people wipe out a devil.