Little New Year (Chinese: Xiaonian), usually a week before the lunar New Year, falls on Feb. 8 this year. It is also known as the Festival of the Kitchen God, the deity who oversees the moral character of each household.
A painting depicting the Kitchen God on display. (Photo/China News Service)
There are numerous customs associated with honoring the Kitchen God and determining the date of Little New Year. The date of this holiday was sometimes assigned according to location, with people in northern China celebrating it on the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, and people in southern China celebrating it on the twenty-fourth.
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Little New Year (Chinese: Xiaonian), usually a week before the lunar New Year, falls on Feb. 8 this year. It is also known as the Festival of the Kitchen God, the deity who oversees the moral character of each household.
There are numerous customs associated with honoring the Kitchen God and determining the date of Little New Year. The date of this holiday was sometimes assigned according to location, with people in northern China celebrating it on the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, and people in southern China celebrating it on the twenty-fourth.
In one of the most distinctive traditions of the Little New Year is the burning of a paper image of the Kitchen God, dispatching the god's spirit to Heaven to report on the family's conduct over the past year. The Kitchen God is then welcomed back by to the home through the pasting of a new paper image of him beside the stove. From this vantage point, the Kitchen God will oversee and protect the household for another year.
Between Laba Festival, on the eighth day of the last lunar month, and Little New Year, on the twenty-third day, families throughout China undertake a thorough house cleaning, sweeping out the old in preparation for the New Year.
Guandong candy, a sticky treat made out of glutinous millet and sprouted wheat, is a traditional snack that Chinese people eat on the Festival of the Kitchen God.
In the Little New Year, old couplets and paper-cuts from the previous Spring Festival are taken down, and new window decorations, New Year's posters, and auspicious decorations are pasted up.
As the old Chinese saying goes, whether they're rich or poor, people often have a haircut before the Spring Festival. The activity of taking bath and haircut is often taken on the Little New Year.
People make sacrifices to the Kitchen God on this day. A paper image is burnt dispatching the god's spirit to Heaven to report on the family's conduct over the past year. The Kitchen God is then welcomed back by pasting a new paper image of him beside the stove.
Here are six things you should know about the Little New Year, another sign of the start of spring.
1. Offer sacrifices to Kitchen God
In one of the most distinctive traditions of the Little New Year is the burning of a paper image of the Kitchen God, dispatching the god's spirit to Heaven to report on the family's conduct over the past year. The Kitchen God is then welcomed back by to the home through the pasting of a new paper image of him beside the stove. From this vantage point, the Kitchen God will oversee and protect the household for another year.
The offerings to the Kitchen God include pig's head, fish, sweet bean paste, melons, fruit, boiled dumplings, barley sugar, and Guandong candy, a sticky treat made out of glutinous millet and sprouted wheat.
Most of the offerings are sweets of various varieties. It is thought that this will seal the Kitchen God's mouth and encourage him to only say good things about the family when he ascends to heaven to make his report. The Kitchen God will be invited to sit in a sedan chair for his trip to heaven.
Consequently, the day before Little New Year, the streets and alleyways are filled with vendors selling papier-m?ché sedan chairs and paper gold and silver ingots for the Kitchen God's journey. There are even songs in his honor.
Although very few families still make offerings to the Kitchen God on this day, many traditional holiday activities are still very popular.
2. House cleaning
Between Laba Festival, on the eighth day of the last lunar month, and Little New Year, on the twenty-third day, families throughout China undertake a thorough house cleaning, sweeping out the old in preparation for the New Year.
According to Chinese folk beliefs, during the last month of the year ghosts and deities must choose either to return to Heaven or to stay on Earth. It is believed that in order to ensure the ghosts and deities' timely departure people must thoroughly clean both their persons and their dwellings, down to every last drawer and cupboard.
3. Eat Guandong candy
Guandong candy, a sticky treat made out of glutinous millet and sprouted wheat, is a traditional snack that Chinese people eat on the Festival of the Kitchen God.
4. Paste paper-cuts to windows
In the Little New Year, old couplets and paper-cuts from the previous Spring Festival are taken down, and new window decorations, New Year's posters, and auspicious decorations are pasted up.
5. Bath and hair-cut
File photo shows a baby take a haircut at a barbershop. (Photo by Chao Ran/Asianewsphoto)
As the old Chinese saying goes, whether they're rich or poor, people often have a haircut before the Spring Festival. The activity of taking bath and haircut is often taken on the Little New Year.
6. Preparations for Spring Festival
People start to stock up necessary provisions for the Spring Festival since the Little New Year. Everything needed to make offerings to the ancestors, entertain guests, and feed the family over the long holiday must be purchased in advance.
Before setting out to the market, a Spring Festival shopping list must be made, including items such as meat, poultry and eggs, fruit and vegetables, rice and flour, cigarettes, alcohol, sugar, and tea, red paper, images of celestial horses and the Kitchen God. Incense and candles, snacks, new calendars, and toys must also be purchased. Not to be forgotten are new clothes for children and firecrackers to welcome in the New Year.
After Spring Festival provisions have been brought home, it's time to make further preparations for the holiday. These preparations may include preparing meat, packing blood sausages, making tofu, steaming New Year's sticky rice cakes, and making fried bread. This must all be done in advance, since no cooking may be done from New Year's Eve until well into the first month of the New Year.
World donors pledged more than $2.1 billion in humanitarian aid for Sudan after a yearlong war that has pushed its population to the brink of famine, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday.
Macron spoke at the end of an international conference in Paris aimed at drumming up support for Sudan’s 51 million people. The aid will go to food, water, medicines and other urgent needs, he said, without providing a specific timeline.
Top diplomatic envoys, U.N. officials and aid agencies urged Sudan’s warring parties to stop attacks on civilians and allow access for humanitarian aid, and called for immediate international mediation efforts toward peace. Members of Sudan’s civil society took part in the Paris meeting, but neither the Sudanese army nor its rival paramilitary were represented.
Sudan descended into conflict in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere across the country.
“Much of the world has been focused on the crisis that was generated in the Middle East. As concerning as those developments are, other dramatic life-and-death emergencies are being pushed into the shadows,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters after the Security Council met on Sudan on Monday.
“The world is forgetting about the people of Sudan,” he said.
The United Nations’ humanitarian campaign needs some $2.7 billion this year to get food, health care and other supplies to 24 million people in Sudan — nearly half its population. So far, funders have given only $145 million, about 5%, according to the U.N’s humanitarian office, known as OCHA.
After Monday's conference, Macron said, ‘’We are today at 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) for Sudan.'' Of that, some 900 million euros comes from EU countries, he said.
Monday's conference among 58 countries also called on regional powers to stop funding Sudan’s war. Without naming them, Macron said, ’’The amount we raised today remains probably less than all the money raised by several powers'' to wage a proxy conflict in Sudan.
More than 14,000 people have been killed and at least 33,000 have been wounded in the yearlong war. Nearly 9 million people have been forced to flee their homes either to safer areas inside Sudan or to neighboring countries, according to the U.N. Hunger, sexual violence against women and girls and continued displacement are rampant and much of the country's infrastructure — homes, hospitals and schools — has been reduced to rubble.
“We cannot let this nightmare slide from view,” Guterres said in a video message to the Paris conference.
“It’s time to support the Sudanese people. It’s time to silence the guns," he added.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said the aim of the conference was to mobilize humanitarian funding to help Sudanese people, who have been victims of both a “terrible war” and “international indifference.”
The European Union's crisis management commissioner, Janez Lenarcic, said the 27-member bloc wants to ensure that Sudan is not forgotten as wars in Gaza and Ukraine dominate the international news.
“People of Sudan, caught up in this emergency, are almost completely invisible,” Lenarcic said. Sudan has turned into one of the worst humanitarian disasters ever on the African continent, he said, and added: “It is our duty not to look away.”
President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric warned that humanitarian action is increasingly politicized in Sudan and humanitarian workers are risking their lives to get vital aid to people.
“Securing a military advantage cannot be pursued regardless of the human cost,” Spoljaric said.
The United States and Saudi Arabia initially led efforts to find a negotiated way out of the conflict. But since October the fighting has been overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which is threatening to expand into a broader regional conflict.
Relief workers, meanwhile, warn that Sudan is hurtling towards potential mass death in the coming months. Food production and distribution networks have broken down and aid agencies are unable to reach the worst-stricken regions.
The conflict has also been marked by widespread reports of atrocities including killings, displacement and rape, particularly in the area of the capital and the western region of Darfur.
At least 37% of the population at crisis level or above suffer from hunger, according to OCHA. Save the Children warned that about 230,000 children, pregnant women and newborn mothers could die of malnutrition in the coming months.
“Famine is a reality in Sudan,” said Abdallah al-Dardari, a regional director of the U.N. Development Program.
The military, headed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, have carved up Khartoum and trade indiscriminate fire at each other. In 2021, Burhan and Dagalo were uneasy allies who led a military coup. They toppled an internationally recognized civilian government that was supposed to steer Sudan’s democratic transition.
Magdy reported from Cairo and Surk from Nice, France. AP journalist Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a session at the international conference on Sudan, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Paris. Top diplomats and aid groups met in the French capital to drum up humanitarian support for Sudan after a yearlong war has devastated the northeastern African country and pushed its people to the brink of famine. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard; Pool)
French President Emmanuel Macron attends a session at the international conference on Sudan, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Paris. Top diplomats and aid groups met in the French capital to drum up humanitarian support for Sudan after a yearlong war has devastated the northeastern African country and pushed its people to the brink of famine. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard; Pool)
French President Emmanuel Macron, center, attends a session at the international conference on Sudan, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Paris. Top diplomats and aid groups met in the French capital to drum up humanitarian support for Sudan after a yearlong war has devastated the northeastern African country and pushed its people to the brink of famine. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard; Pool)
French President Emmanuel Macron, right, speaks during a session at the international conference on Sudan, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Paris. Top diplomats and aid groups met in the French capital to drum up humanitarian support for Sudan after a yearlong war has devastated the northeastern African country and pushed its people to the brink of famine. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard; Pool)
French President Emmanuel Macron attends a session at the international conference on Sudan, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Paris. Top diplomats and aid groups met in the French capital to drum up humanitarian support for Sudan after a yearlong war has devastated the northeastern African country and pushed its people to the brink of famine. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard; Pool)
French President Emmanuel Macron, center, chairs an international conference on Sudan, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Paris. Top diplomats and aid groups met in the French capital to drum up humanitarian support for Sudan after a yearlong war has devastated the northeastern African country and pushed its people to the brink of famine. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard; Pool)
French President Emmanuel Macron attends a session at the international conference on Sudan, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Paris. Top diplomats and aid groups met in the French capital to drum up humanitarian support for Sudan after a yearlong war has devastated the northeastern African country and pushed its people to the brink of famine. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard; Pool)
FILE - Sudanese Ambassador to the United Nations Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed, third from right bottom, listens as Karim Khan, third from right top, Prosecutor of International Criminal Court, addresses a Security Council meeting on the situation in Sudan, Thursday, July 13, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
FILE - Sudan's Army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan speaks in Khartoum, Sudan, on Dec. 5, 2022. Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)
FILE - Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, then deputy head of the military council, salutes during a rally, in Galawee, northern Sudan, June 15, 2019. Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. (AP Photo, File)
Sudanese Children suffering from malnutrition are treated at an MSF clinic in Metche Camp, Chad, near the Sudanese border, Saturday, April 6, 2024. Many people here fled the fighting in Sudan's vast western region of Darfur, where attacks by the Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces on ethnic African civilians have revived memories of genocide. The United Nations says close to 9 million people have fled their homes. (AP Photo/Patricia Simon)
FILE - People prepare food in a Khrtoum neighborhood on June 16, 2023. Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. (AP Photo, File)
File - A man walks by a house hit in recent fighting in Khartoum, Sudan, Tuesday, April 25, 2023. Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)
