Spring Festival custom: no sneezing on New Year's Day
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-01-29 11:23

In a small village in east China's Shandong Province, sneezing is a taboo in the morning of the Chinese New Year's Day.

The locals in Shizhang village in the northwestern part of the province firmly believe a sneeze first thing in the new year will ruin your good luck. If one really cannot keep from sneezing, he has to face a wall.

In a centuries-old tradition, the locals have to pay a new year call to their elders in the village on the first day of the Chinese New Year, but all the visits have to be done before daybreak. A New Year visit to an elderly in broad daylight is considered disrespectful.

On the eve of the Chinese New Year, all the children in the village would run around a tree once, holding brightly lit lanterns in their hands. Meanwhile, all the adults in the neighborhood would gather together to light firecrackers and set a needfire which they believe will fend off evil spirits.