17 Chinese New Year Activities, Games, And Celebration Ideas

A new lunar calendar cycle begins with the Chinese New Year. During the occasion, the Chinese believe that wearing red drives away evil spirits and provides wealth to those who wear it. So, you might dress in your finest red attire to commemorate this occasion if you are hosting it at your workplace or with your friends.

With every employee or friend dressed in their best, this competition is ideal. Each department in the office or your group of friends selects one representative to compete. The representatives will compete with one another, and the winner will be the one with the finest outfit.

This competition will help preserve culture in a way as well as make the Chinese New Year very fun and engaging.

Bright red lanterns, flowers, and placemats are just a few of the colorful decorations that are used to celebrate the Chinese New Year. If you are celebrating the Chinese New Year at your office, with each department adorning a wing of the workplace, workers might turn these customs into a competition.

After that, the company might give out a prize to motivate staff to perform to the best of their abilities. Employees have ample time to decorate every department in keeping with the Chinese New Year theme if the contest is launched at least one week before the holiday.

Employees can then cast their votes on the day of the celebration, and the competition is won by the decor that receives the most votes.

Tossing the Yusheng, or prosperity toss, is one of the greatest ways to celebrate the Chinese New Year. In this traditional practice, a big bowl of vibrant salads is tossed, with greetings spoken between each toss.

According to Chinese belief, you will have greater success in the upcoming year if you toss the salad higher. Each element in yusheng, a traditional Chinese raw fish salad, represents a significant hope for the future.

Colleagues must assemble around the salad tray and throw the yusheng as high as they can with chopsticks while exchanging hopeful greetings to eat it. When tossing the salad, the teammates must be careful to push it to the center, which represents wishing everyone at the table luck. After that, the teammates will assemble to have the yusheng, making sure that some salad overflows the table to symbolize abundance.

One of the most sophisticated Chinese New Year activities must be shopping. It's usual to see crowds in marketplaces and retail centers around this time, which is nearly ten days before New Year's Eve. People mostly purchase meat, firecrackers, new outfits, red decorations, and refreshments for their children.

Also, a Chinese New Year shopping list must include candy, peanuts, and sunflower seeds. Nowadays, a lot of people choose to purchase online due to its ease, and e-commerce businesses hold a number of yearly online New Year's fairs with significant discounts.

Hence, celebratory food, flowers, accessories, clothing, furniture, and electric appliances are the best-selling items during Chinese New Year.

Nearly every Chinese household displays Spring Festival couplets on their doors to convey heartfelt greetings and well wishes during the Spring Festival.

Originally meant to ward off bad spirits, Spring Festival couplets are written on red paper using ink or gold paint. To enhance the joyous ambiance, Chinese people hung Spring Festival couplets on either side of their gates.

Normally, the top scroll is pasted first, followed by the lower scroll, and finally the horizontal scroll. Furthermore, the Chinese like pasting the Chinese character Fu, which can be pasted either properly or upside down, as inverted Fu is considered to signify the coming of good fortune in Chinese culture.

Lighting firecrackers is one of the most common Chinese New Year activities. To celebrate the coming of the New Year and ward off evil spirits, the Chinese typically stay up until midnight and light firecrackers.

This is to welcome the New Year as well. Big cities like Beijing and Shanghai prohibit people from lighting off firecrackers for safety and environmental concerns. The Hong Kong CNY fireworks spectacular at Victoria Harbour is a popular example of a public fireworks display.

It is said that the first person to light fireworks in the New Year will be lucky.

Chinese poker is a well-liked card game in China. It may be played using regular poker decks in groups of three or more. One of the simplest Chinese New Year pastimes is Chinese poker. If players are familiar with traditional poker games, the game is easy.

Two to four people can participate in the game, which is played with a conventional 52-card deck. Each player receives thirteen cards to play with, which are split into three hands: two five-card hands and one three-card hand.

The objective is to create the finest possible card combinations to outscore your opponents' hands. This activity may also be transformed into a program for exchanging gifts, which could promote real friendships and connections.

People are expected to stay at home and spend time with their parents during the first few days of the new year. To wish one another a happy new year, folks should visit their friends and family between the fourth and seventh days.

It is customary for married couples to spend the second day of the New Year visiting the wife's parents. It's normal to accept gifts from friends and family, such as regional wines and goods. Additionally, their elders may give red envelopes to young children and newlywed couples.

It is a significant courtesy to bring some New Year presents for friends and family while you are visiting them during the Chinese New Year.

An essential component of the Chinese New Year festivities is temple fairs. In the past, the goal of these fairs was to draw visitors to Buddhist and Taoist temples so they could observe temple rites, attend diverse performances, and purchase. It is also a customary festival ritual, particularly in Beijing.

They were formerly a temple-related kind of worship, but these days they resemble carnivals with interspersed lion and dragon dances. One may witness traditional cultural events including puppet shows and traditional magic.

This type of temple fair offers a wide range of goods at discounted prices. This contrasts with Hong Kong, where crowds swarm the temple outside in hopes of being the first to rush inside and offer prayers for good fortune in the upcoming year.

Red envelope exchanges are a well-known and ancient Chinese New Year custom. As a sign of good fortune and best wishes for the upcoming year, family members and friends customarily gift each other red envelopes filled with cash.

The most important things to keep in mind regarding this Chinese New Year custom are to always use a fresh bill or note and to open the envelope only after you have parted ways with the person who handed it to you.

Giving money to your loved ones or maybe penning messages for the folks you're going to present the red envelopes to are two ways you may carry on this custom. For instance, you might send a message to your coworkers congratulating them for their efforts over the last year if you wish to exchange red envelopes with them.

During the Chinese New Year, take part in a traditional spring clean to get rid of the old and welcome the new. Whether at your workplace, home, or even school, everyone may enjoy participating in the most productive of the Chinese New Year activities for adults, which is spring cleaning.

You could choose to organize a clean-up day for your office with your coworkers or urge your family to gather a bag of items to give to a good worthy cause.

Decluttering your home will help you start the new year with a clean vibe and new energy. During Chinese New Year, it is customary to wash away any filth to stave off bad luck or mishap.

In China, dragons symbolize strength, courage, and power. Did you know that Chinese dragons are also believed to bring good fortune and favors and, on top of that, are in control of the weather, like floods and hurricanes?

It is believed that doing a dragon dance during Chinese New Year will keep the bad luck away and bring good fortune. Doing a dragon dance is a good chance to learn Chinese cultural customs, and it's probably the most fun and energetic of all our adult Chinese New Year activities.

This is the perfect Chinese New Year activity for people who want to learn about the customs, history, and tales of the traditional holiday. A great way to unite people and increase your understanding of this amazing event and celebration is to finish a Chinese New Year quiz.

You can go through some exciting facts about the Chinese New Year in order to prepare for the test. Whether you do a quiz in groups or individually, you will surely enjoy it and get excited about the same.

So, if you are looking for some activity or games to play during the Chinese New Year, a quiz might be the answer for you since it is something easy to play and won't need much effort apart from making questions or preparing the answers.

Families gather and hold a reunion feast on the eve of Chinese New Year. These days, many younger generations of Chinese people would move to bigger cities like Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou in hopes of making their fortune.

The new year break might be their few opportunities to go back and visit parents and other family members since they can be really busy during the year. Dumplings have to be on the table for the New Year's Eve feast.

They say that the more dumplings you eat during Chinese New Year, the more money and good fortune you can gain the following year because they resemble old Chinese ingots in shape. Like dumplings, a lot of the other foods on the table like fish, Nian Gao, etc. all represent prosperity, luck, or good fortune.

Younger generations and individuals of all ages love the traditional game of bingo. Chinese New Year Bingo uses graphics with a Chinese New Year theme in place of numbers, giving the game a festive twist.

Bingo cards and markers, such as little candies or coins, are required to play. Call out the Chinese New Year symbols, and the first player to get BINGO will win. With a distinct Chinese zodiac animal, Chinese New Year phrase, or a variety of Chinese New Year items and presents, each board has a unique design.

Every Chinese New Year is symbolized by an animal. The company might engage a face painter to create the animal on each employee's face if you are planning Chinese New Year events at the workplace. Workers may decide to get the painting in various colors or styles on their faces, arms, or legs.

Workers may have a lot of fun by painting the animal of the Chinese New Year. Employees may, however, learn more about the meaning of this year's animal before having it painted.

This measure guarantees that staff members are aware of the meaning of these animals and that they are exclusively connected to blessings and good fortune. This event can be organized at schools or even at home.

Team members must try to blow ping pong balls past a series of cups in the thrilling Ping Pong Game. China's national sport is ping pong, which makes the Chinese very proud of this sport. The nation has won many Olympic ping pong medals.

This form of ping pong, which requires at least 8 to 10 players, is an easy and entertaining way for teams to pass time during the Chinese New Year festivities.

The participants should next be divided into groups of four or five. Large groups are ideal for this game since it can get boisterous and entertaining. Employees may also interact, converse, and learn more about one another through this activity.