中英双语话中国民风民俗 第51期:人们过春节时的活动

What Would People Do in Spring Festival

人们过春节时的活动

The Spring Festival like Christmas Day in the western countries, is the most important festival in China. Children like it very much because they can have delicious things to eat, pretty clothes to wear and many nice things to play with. When Spring Festival comes，people away from their hometowns usually come back and spend it with their families. People mainly do two things during the festival. One is eating, and the other is playing. They usually buy different kinds of food and make different kinds of delicious dishes, and play in different ways.

春节像在西方国家的圣诞节，是中国最重要的节日。孩子们非常喜欢它，因为他们可以有好吃的东西吃，有漂亮的衣服穿，有很多好玩的东西玩。当春节来临时，人远离自己的家乡，通常回来与家人团聚。人们主要在节日期间做两件事情。其中之一是吃，另一个是玩。他们通常购买不同种类的食物，做不同种类的美味佳肴，并以不同的方式玩。

In the spirit of setting things straight,all account books should be balanced, debts paid off, and houses cleaned before New Year's Day. Then houses,businesses,and streets are decked and draped with banners,flowers, and scrolls of vivid red, a traditionally lucky and demon-dispelling hue. People exchange red-wrapped gifts, most commonly the hong bao—cash enclosed in a compact red paper packet—and offer their friends propitious edibles such as red dates (whose Chinese name,hong zao,sounds like the words for "prosperity comes soon") and tangerines (whose Cantonese pronunciation,kat,sounds like that of the word for "lucky"）

本着使一切顺利的精神，所有账册应该是平衡的，元旦前还清债务，清理房屋。接着房屋，企业和街道挂满横幅、鲜花、生动的红色、传统的幸运与辟邪的色彩。人们交换红色包裹的礼品，最常见的是红包——在一张压缩的红纸里包着现金，并提供他们的朋友吉利的零嘴，如红枣（他的中国名字是红枣，听起来像字“福乐即将来到”）和柑橘（其粤语发音，吉，这个词听起来像“幸运”）