The Chinese New Year is now popularly known as the Spring Festival because it starts from the Begining of Spring (the first of the twenty-four terms in coodination with the changes of Nature). Its origin is too old to be traced. Several explanations are hanging around. All agree, however, that the word Nian, which in modern Chinese solely means "year", was originally the name of a monster beast that started to prey on people the night before the beginning of a new year.
One legend goes that the beast Nian had a very big mouth that would swallow a great many people with one bite. People were very scared. One day, an old man came to their rescue, offering to subdue Nian. To Nian he said, "I hear say that you are very capable, but can you swallow the other beasts of prey on earth instead of people who are by no means of your worthy opponents?" So, it did swallow many of the beasts of prey on earth that also harrassed people and their domestic animals from time to time.
After that, the old man disappeared riding the beast Nian. He turned out to be an immortal god. Now that Nian is gone and other beasts of prey are also scared into forests, people begin to enjoy their peaceful life. Before the old man left, he had told people to put up red paper decorations on their windows and doors at each year's end to scare away Nian in case it sneaked back again, because red is the color the beast feared the most.
From then on, the tradition of observing the conquest of Nian is carried on from generation to generation. The term "Guo Nian", which may mean "Survive the Nian" becomes today "Celebrate the (New) Year" as the word "guo" in Chinese having both the meaning of "pass-over" and "observe". The custom of putting up red paper and firing fire-crackers to scare away Nian should it have a chance to run loose is still around. However, people today have long forgotten why they are doing all this, except that they feel the color and the sound add to the excitement of the celebration.

中國(guó)的新年是現(xiàn)在俗稱春節(jié)，因?yàn)樗鼜牧⒋洪_(kāi)始（二十四個(gè)節(jié)氣的第一個(gè)節(jié)氣）。它的起源太舊了，不可追溯。一些解釋是掛在。然而，所有人都同意，這句話，這在現(xiàn)代漢語(yǔ)完全是“一年”，原本是一個(gè)怪物野獸的名字開(kāi)始在人們的獵物前一個(gè)晚上開(kāi)始的一個(gè)新的一年。
有一個(gè)傳說(shuō)，那獸年有一個(gè)非常大的嘴巴，一口吞了很多人。人們很害怕。有一天，一位老人來(lái)拯救他們，提供制服念。他說(shuō)：“我聽(tīng)說(shuō)你很能干，但是你能把其他的野獸吞到地球上，而不是那些沒(méi)有你的對(duì)手的人嗎？”所以，它吞下了許多在地球上的獵物，也騷擾人民和他們的家畜不時(shí)的野獸。
在那之后，老人消失騎獸年。他變成了一個(gè)不朽的神�，F(xiàn)在，“年”已經(jīng)過(guò)去了，其他野獸的獵物也被驚嚇到森林，人們開(kāi)始享受他們的和平生活。在老人離開(kāi)之前，他曾告訴人們把紅紙裝飾他們的窗戶和門在每年的年底嚇跑年的情況下溜回來(lái)了，因?yàn)榧t色是顏色最害怕野獸。
從那時(shí)起，觀察征服的傳統(tǒng)是世代相傳的�！斑^(guò)年”，這可能意味著“生存的年”成為今天“慶祝（新的）年”作為“國(guó)”，在中國(guó)有兩個(gè)“通過(guò)”和“觀察”的含義。把紅色的紙和燒起來(lái)的爆竹來(lái)嚇跑的習(xí)俗應(yīng)該有一個(gè)機(jī)會(huì)去跑散了。然而，人們很早就忘記了他們?yōu)槭裁催@樣做，除了他們的顏色和聲音增添了慶祝的興奮。