Entry 4: Chinese New Year Celebrations

Today is the Chinese New Year eve! It is the year of the rat this year. We celebrated Chinese New Year in school. We only had to come to school for 2 hours. We would go home at 9:30am. Some students and chinese teachers performed on stage. There was also some people from outside the school coming to perform a Lion Dance. The chinese teacher's performance taught me a lot about Chinese New Year. I learnt that we must clean our houses before Chinese New Year because the story said that if we don't, we will be punished.Red became the prosperous colour because in the past, there was a monster named "Nian" he always came to this village on Chinese New Year eve and ate people. On that day, people would hide in the mountains. One time, an old man came to this village on Chinese New Year eve. A kind old lady gave him some food and told him to hide in the mountains. The old man insisted on staying and the old lady left alone. The old man learnt than "Nian" was afraid of red and used red to scare him away. That is how red became the properous colour.