Chinese New Year started on Feb 7 this year (normally celebrated for 15-days), and people from all over the world, not just Chinese, are celebrating the festival…

Villagers in Tianxin Village, Jiangxi Province, China dressed up in full gear to light the firecrackers

Annual Nagasaki Lantern Festival in Nagasaki, Japan (Image courtesy of Jon from Japundit)

Lion dance performance in front of a large crowd in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It’s the year of rat… Chinese New Year decoration in Sentosa Island, Singapore

Lion dance performance at Philippine Stock Exchange in Makati, Philippines

Chinese New Year celebration in Kolkata’s Chinatown, India

It’s always a pleasure to see non-Chinese doing lion dance (London, UK)

Chinese New Year decoration at a train station in Berlin, Germany

Chinse New Year parade in New York, USA

Hee Haa… Kungfu performance during a parade in Mexico City, Mexico

More Kungfu from Havana, Cuba

A cultural performance in Panama City, Panama

Dragon dance performance in Sao Paulo, Brazil
(All images courtesy of Xinhuanet unless stated otherwise)

Chinese calendar is represented with 12 zodiac animals for every 12-year cycle in specific sequence – rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Next year will be the year of rat (begins on Feb 7 on Chinese New Year to be precise).

Workers working on the drum in early December (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet)

In Chinese astrology, the 12 zodiac animals represent different character and luck for a person depending on his/her birth date and time. The months and hours of Chinese calendar are also categorized by the same group of animals in particular orders, but some formal terms would normally be used instead of the zodiac animals when referring to months or hours.

People playing CuJu in a recent cultural
exhibition in Xuzhou, China

The sport gone hiatus for a few decades during Qing Dynasty (221 BC–206 BC), and became popular during Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). The first emperor of Han was said to be a fan of CuJu, hence led to the development of the game.

The CuJu game during the Han Dynasty was similar to modern day’s football game. It was a physical (and skills) battle between 2 teams of 12 players (11 in modern days) to put the ball inside the goal post on the opponents end without using their hands.

The game took a massive change in Tang Dynasty (618–907). First, there was a huge breakthrough in the Ju (the ball)… the ball was made of animals’ bladder and was filled with air compared with stuffed-and-stitch hair and cloth in the old days.

The new ball was much lighter and bouncy, thus the rules of the game changed dramatically. Instead of having the goal post on the floor, the goal mouth was set hanging on air at the middle of the field. The players competed against each other to put the ball through the goal without the ball dropping on the floor… with no physical contact involved.

The light weight of the new ball also gave the females a chance to play the game… and a new form of CuJu sport was developed, called BaiDa (白打). There was no goal mouth in BaiDa… the aim of the game was simply to juggle the ball as long as possible, and showing different kind of skills.

BaiDa became popular among men as well during Song Dynasty (960–1279), and the old game of goal scoring became obsolete gradually.

CuJu began its downfall during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), when the game was used as a gimmick by the sex industry to attract customers; public servants had also became obsessed with the game and that partly led to the downfall of the dynasty.

After overturning the Yuan Dynasty, the first emperor of Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) banned all militants and public servants from playing the sport, fearing that their addictiveness could lead to similar destruction of Yuan Dynasty. The game was not forbidden for common citizen, but its popularity was gradually fading.

CuJu was almost completely forgotten during Qing Dynasty (1644–1911).

Today, the traditional CuJu is only played in exhibition and cultural event; its popularity is completely overtaken by modern day football.

In 2004, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of international football (soccer), claimed officially that China was the birthplace of its game.

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Chinese ‘tea’ chess (Image courtesy of Crienglish)

Pu’er (or Pu-erh) tea has been a popular drink in China for over thousand of years. Drinking Pu’er tea is purported to aid in digestion, reduce blood cholesterol and lipid levels. It is also widely believed in Chinese cultures that tea could counteract the unpleasant effects of heavy alcohol consumption.

Gigantic mooncake (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet)

Mooncake is a Chinese pastry traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (15th day of the 8th lunar month in Chinese calendar); a normal mooncake is around palm-size.