Spring Festival is the Chinese New Year celebration, which takes place on the first day of the first lunar month, usually around January or February each year. It is a season when Chinese people return home and spend time with their families, reflect on the preceding year and welcome good luck for the coming one, eat dumplings and other traditional treats, and give away money to young people and elders. The color red is seen as lucky in Chinese culture, so many people wear red clothing or decorate their homes in red ornaments for the holiday.

Though many traditions go along with Spring Festival, one of the most important is the decorating that families do in their homes. Much like during Christmas in the west, decorating the home is one of the main activities during Chinese New Year. The decorations always portray a New Year greeting, usually one of luck, happiness and peace. They often display Chinese calligraphy or feature ancient idioms or sayings.

The New Year picture is one such decoration, known in Chinese as a banhua, or printed picture. These printed pictures date back to the Qin Dynasty when artists began using woodblock printing techniques to spread their works. Later, banhua were used to print religious manuscripts, illustrations and banknotes.

New Year pictures themselves date back to the Qin Dynasty (221 – 206 B.C.), but became more popular during the 17th century, after the invention of the banhua printing method. The earliest designs were of door gods, pictures of deities placed near the entryways to homes, temples and businesses. The door gods were meant to keep out evil spirits and bad luck.

Modern New Year pictures usually depict more complex scenes of meetings, carnivals, festivals, women and children, or the Chinese Kitchen God, Zao Jun. As one of the most important Chinese deities, Zao Jun is believed to return just before the New Year and report the activities of each household to the Jade Emperor in heaven, who then punishes or rewards the family. Sometime, honey is spread over Zao Jun’s effigy, to either sweeten his report to the Jade Emperor, or to seal his lips. On New Year’s Day, his picture is burnt and replaced, and firecrackers are set off to light his way back to heaven.

Each family has a unique and interesting New Year picture. Customarily, the family will amend the picture each year just before the arrival of the new year. According to an ancient Chinese idiom, these changes are meant to wave goodbye to the past and welcome the future.