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Spring Festival custom: no sneezing on New Year's Day
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-01-29 11:23
In a small village in east China's Shandong Province, sneezing is a taboo in
the morning of the Chinese New Year's Day.
The locals in Shizhang village in the northwestern part of the province
firmly believe a sneeze first thing in the new year will ruin your good luck. If
one really cannot keep from sneezing, he has to face a wall.
In a centuries-old tradition, the locals have to pay a new year call to their
elders in the village on the first day of the Chinese New Year, but all the
visits have to be done before daybreak. A New Year visit to an elderly in broad
daylight is considered disrespectful.
On the eve of the Chinese New Year, all the children in the village would run
around a tree once, holding brightly lit lanterns in their hands. Meanwhile, all
the adults in the neighborhood would gather together to light firecrackers and
set a needfire which they believe will fend off evil spirits.
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