Do you know the Spring Festival?
The oldest and most important festival in China is the Spring Festival, more commonly known in the West as Chinese New Year. Like all traditional Chinese festivals, the date of the new year is determined by the lunar calendar rather than the Western calendar, so the date of the holiday varies from late January to mid February. The Spring Festival celebrates the earth coming back to life, and the start of ploughing and sowing.
Preparations for the Spring Festival start during the last few days of the last month. Houses are completely cleaned, debts repaid, hair cut and new clothes bought. Doors are decorated with all kinds of characters on red paper whose texts seek good luck and praise nature. This practice is to keep away ghosts and evil spirits. In many homes incense (香) is burned, and also in the temples as a mark of respect to ancestors (祖先)．
On New Year's Eve houses are brightly lit and a large family dinner is served. In the south of China stickysweet glutinous rice (糯米) pudding called niangao is served, while in the north the dumpling is popular. Most people celebrating the festival stay up till midnight, when fireworks are lit to drive away evil spirits. The Spring Festival is often spent visiting neighbours, relatives and friends.
The public holiday for New Year lasts 3 days in China, but the festival traditionally lasts till the 15th day of the lunar month and ends with the “Lantern Festival”. Here, houses are decorated with colourful lanterns, and yuanxiao, or the boiled dumpling made of glutinous rice flour is eaten.
Task：Answer the following questions.
1．Which festival is the oldest and most important festival in China?
The_Spring_Festival.
2．Why are doors decorated with all kinds of characters on red paper on the Spring Festival?
To_keep_away_ghosts_and_evil_spirits.
