Happy Chinese New Year!

 

Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. February 10th is the beginning of Chinese New Year in 2013. It is the year of the Snake (蛇年shé nián).  Festivities around the world begin on Chinese New Year Eve (February 9th ) and run until February 24th (Lantern Festival 元宵节yuánxiāojié).

除夕chúxī - New Year Eve
新年xīnnián - New Year
春节chūnjié - Spring Festival
恭喜gōngxǐ - Congratulation
过年好guò nián hǎo - Happy New Year

恭喜发财! gōngxǐ fācái
蛇年吉祥! shé nián jí xiáng

新年快乐! xīnnián kuàilè

Chinese Character '福Fu'

"福Fu", one of the Chinese characters that best epitomize China's time-honored culture, is a must in Spring Festival celebrations. Nowadays, "福fu," literally meaning auspiciousness, blessing or happiness, usually appears as a cultural symbol to express people's wishes for the coming new year. Yet, in the past, the character mainly meant luck and fortune, which also represented the unanimous hope of the society.
The tradition of pasting the character "福Fu" on walls, doors and doorposts has existed among the people for a long time. According to Menglianglu, a book recording the folk customs in the Song Dynasty (960-1127), people at that time had already been practicing the tradition.
The character can either be written or printed. The accompanying patterns usually include a variety of themes like the god of longevity, a birthday peach, a carp, a dragon and a phoenix as well as other themes. The character written on paper can be pasted both normally and upside down, because in Chinese the "up-sided 福fu" is homophonic with "福fu comes (fu dao le)", both being pronounced as "福fu dao le".