The Spring Festival, widely known as Chinese New Year in the West, is the most important traditional festival, and most important celebration for families in China.
It is an official public holiday, during which most Chinese have 8 days off work.
In 2015, most Chinese will be off work from Wednesday, February 18 (New Year's Eve) to Tuesday, February 24 (the 6th day of Chinese New Year).
Officially, only the first three days of the Chinese New Year are statutory holiday. The New Year's Eve and three more days are always added to give seven consecutive days of holiday.
These four extra days are taken from weekends: the weekend closest to the statutory holiday is included, while the Sunday before (February 15, 2015) and the Saturday after (February 28, 2015) are worked.
The Spring Festival has a history of more than 4,000 years. It is said to have been originated from a belief in deities that had to be sacrificed to every year.
When the solar terms changed, dictating farming activities, especially at the end of a year, people would sacrifice to the deities and pray for a good harvest.
The Chinese calendar is based on the lunar year, so the date for the New Year changes every year, it follows a 12-year pattern with each year named after an animal.
The animals are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, Rooster, dog, and pig.
Each animal represents a year in a 12-year cycle, beginning on Chinese New Year's Day and 2015 is a year of the “Goat”, according to the Chinese 12-year animal zodiac cycle.
Meanwhile, if you were born in a Goat year, you should be particularly careful in 2015, according to Chinese astrology. A “Goat” year occurs every 60 years.
The celebration is a time for families to be together, wherever they are, people come home to celebrate the festival with their families.
The New Year's Eve dinner is called Re-union Dinner, and is believed to be the most important meal of the year. Big families of several generations sit around tables and enjoy the food and time together.
Many cultural activities occur during the festival. Rural areas and small towns retain more traditional celebrations, such as setting off firecrackers, ancestor worship, and dragon dances.
Setting off firecrackers and fireworks are common during the Spring Festival season all over China, dragon dances and ancestor worship less so in the city.
At temple fairs in many Chinese cities, traditional performances can be seen including dragon dances, lion dances, and performances representing palace events like an emperor's wedding.
A great variety of traditional Chinese products are on offer there, and strange Chinese snacks, rarely seen the rest of the year.
Beijing's temple fairs are held in parks from the first day of the lunar year to the Lantern Festival.
Every street, building, and house is decorated with red. “Red” is the main colour for the festival, as it is believed to be an auspicious colour.
Red lanterns hang in streets, red couplets are pasted on doors, Banks and official buildings are decorated with red New Year pictures depicting images of prosperity.
As 2015 is the year of goat, decorations related to goats will be commonly seen, there are red goat dolls for children and New Year paintings with goats on.
Depending on the year you are born, you are believed to have the various character traits of that year's animal.
The Chinese people believe that, as the Spring Festival is the start of a new year, what you do then will affect your luck in the coming year.
There are many taboos for the Spring Festival season, these taboos usually apply up to a month before the festival and continue to the end of the festival.
They are strictly followed in rural areas by the older generations, but the younger generations and people in urban areas may not know them.
Year’s celebrations begins on Thursday 19 February, and end on 5 March.
Meanwhile the Management of Zenith Bank (Ghana) Limited, has hosted a Chinese tea tasting event to promote the culture in Ghana.
The event, the first of its kind in the history of Ghana, is also for the bank to associate itself with its Chinese customers, in commemorating the 2015 Chinese New Year, a year of the green wood goat.
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