As we all know it's a traditional Chinese holiday which is celebrated on the first day of the Chinese calendar.However, I started some further research on the occasion and actually found out that the base of the story doesn't revolve around the race. As I understood it, all the animals were arguing over who should have the New Year named after them so they decided to have a race (or swimming race) to decide who would go when.
This is just one version of the story. The other I discovered was about a creature called Nian. According to legends the Chinese New Year started with a fight against Nian which is a mythical creature. Nian would come and eat all the livestock and even children on the first day of the New Year so the villagers would lay out food for it to protect themselves. They believed that by laying out the food then Nian wouldn't attack them any more. However they then discovered that Nian was frightened of the colour red, as he was seen running away from a child wearing red. From then on they would hang red lanterns from their doors and windows to fend off the Nian, along with also using fire crackers. The Nian never returned.
I will need to work on the story a little bit and I don't think the version including Nian will be the best, but I think it's one idea to keep on the table.
This year is the year of the horse, the year I was born in :)
No comments:
Post a Comment