{"id":6597,"date":"2019-11-20T06:43:07","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T06:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-culture\/chinese-new-year-legend\/"},"modified":"2019-11-20T06:43:07","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T06:43:07","slug":"chinese-new-year-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/chinese-new-year-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese New Year Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div style=\"padding:4px;\"><span>  <\/p>\n<p>An ancient Chinese legend tells of a man-eating  predatory beast called Nian, extremely fierce, with a long head and  sharp horn. Nian dwelled deep in the sea the whole year long, but on  every Chinese New Year eve it would climb o<em><\/em>nto the shore to devour  livestock and harm humans in a near-by village. Therefore, every Chinese  New Year&#8217;s Eve, all the villagers would take their old and young deep  into the mountains to hide from Nian.<\/p>\n<p>One Chinese New Year&#8217;s Eve a grey haired man appeared in the village.  He asked permission to stay for the night and assured everyone that he  would chase away the beast. No one believed him. In addition, the old  man steadfastly refused to go to the mountains to hide. Seeing that he  could not be persuaded, the villagers departed without him.<\/p>\n<p>When the beast arrived at the village to wreck havoc as usual, it was  met with a sudden burst of exploding firecrackers. Startled by the  noise, the flashes of light and red banners flying a<em><\/em>bout, it hastily  turned and fled!<\/p>\n<p>The following day, as the people returned from the mountains, they  found the village intact and safe. The old man had left, but they found  the remains of the three precious items he had used to chase the beast  Nian away. They all agreed that the old man must be a deity who had come  to help free them of the beast.<\/p>\n<p>From then on, every Chinese New Year&#8217;s Eve, families would hang red  banners, set off fire crackers, and light their lamps the whole night  through, awaiting the Chinese New Year. The custom spread far and wide  and became a grand traditio<em><\/em>nal celebration of the &quot;Passing of Nian&quot;  (&quot;Nian&quot; in Chinese means &quot;year&quot;). So celebrating the Chinese New Year  should be called &quot;passing of Nian&quot; or &quot;Guo Nian&quot; in Chinese.<\/p>\n<p>  <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"chine-tie-zi-nei-rong-zhi-hou\" id=\"chine-2420209985\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1889418300638825\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1889418300638825\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"7273022922\" \ndata-ad-layout-key=\"-gw-3+1f-3d+2z\"\ndata-ad-format=\"fluid\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An ancient Chinese legend tells of a man-eating  predatory beast called Nian, extremely fierce, with a long head and  sharp horn. Nian dwelled deep in the sea the whole year long, but on  every Chinese New Year eve it would climb onto the shore to devour  livestock and harm humans in a near-by village. Therefore, every Chinese  New Year&#8217;s Eve, all the villagers would take their old and young deep  into the mountains to hide from Nian.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2838],"tags":[119],"class_list":["post-6597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese-culture","category-chinese-folktales","tag-ancient-chinese"],"views":448,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}