Legend Behind Chinese New Year:
Wondering why Chinese New Year is full of red color and everyone is playing firecracker? It is actually based on a legend of Nian. In ancient China, there is a dangerous monster will devour human, people named the monster Nian, and it will appeared before the night of Chinese New Year. We called the night ''Chu Xi'', Nian was said that it will devour human at every night of ''Chu Xi'', hence people always hide themselves in the forest in order to escape from Nian.
One of the night of ''Chu Xi'', an old woman came from a village claimed that she had he way to banish Nian away. Other villagers did not believe in her and hiding in the forest, left the old woman in village alone. At night, Nian appeared as usual, but it was scared and did not made any further movement in the village because the village's house all had red paper pasted on the wall. The villagers saw this situation and understand that Nian was afraid of red color. A powerful sparkle and noise suddenly burst out from silent, the old woman took a lights up fire cracker and rush to Nian, the result surprised the villagers as Nian quickly flee from the village. Since they found the way to expel Nian, every night of "Chu Xi", villagers will paste red paper or decorate their village with red object, and they will play fire cracker and having celebration as a sign of piece, happiness because they had escaped from the monster.
The tradition is then passed down until now, every Chinese New Year, red color can be targeted at everywhere. Nian has the same meaning as year, so Chinese will said '' Guo Nian '' during Chinese New Year as the meaning of passed the old year.
Snake in Chinese Culture:
For the Chinese people, the snake symbolizes intelligence, happiness and auspiciousness. In certain part of China (Yixing, East China’s Jiangsu Province), people call the snake as the “black dragon” or “savage creature”. People in East China’s Zhejiang Province call it “dragon in heaven” or “celestial being”. At Dangfu in East China’s Anhui Province, people call the snake as “dragon at home”.The snake and the dragon are so linked and alike that the Year of the Dragon is even followed by the Year of the Snake.
Resource: http://chinesehoroscop-e.com/astrology/snake-myths-and-legends.php
