Chinese New Year Decorations (plus highlights from this year's 春晚)

Chinese door banners for Year of the Horse. Image source. 

Yesterday was Chinese New Year's Eve, and my husband went and bought decorations for our door. We took down last year's decorations from our door and put up the new ones. These decorations are called 对联 [duì lián]- it's a horizontal banner that goes across the top of the door, plus 2 vertical banners. They have Chinese phrases on them about having a prosperous year.

See, here's something that I didn't *get* until I'd already been in China for a while. The Chinese New Year decorations that people hang on their doors are not the same thing as the concept I have in my head of putting up decorations for various holidays. It's not like, say, Christmas decorations in the US, where you put them up in December and then take them down in January, and if you still haven't taken them down in February, people will start to judge you. Like Christmas is over, why haven't you put your decorations away yet?

The banners we have taped on our door are not like that. Personally, I find it makes more sense to think of them not as "Chinese New Year decorations" but "decorations that we have up all the time, and we replace them at Chinese New Year."

(I just asked my husband "so, this is different from Christmas decorations, where you take them down after a month, right?" and he said, "Why would we take them down? This is our wish for the year.")

There *are* Chinese New Year decorations that are temporary, like the red lanterns hanging outside our apartment building. Those will get taken down when the holiday is done. But the ones people hang on their doors are different. 

It's an example of a subtle cultural difference. How people from different cultures might think they're talking about the same thing- holiday decorations- but they're not.

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Also, last night was the big New Year gala/ Spring Festival gala on tv, which is called 春晚 [chūn wǎn]. I like to post the videos from my favorite performances every year, so here they are:

[2026央视春晚]浙江义乌分会场《世界义乌中国年》 演唱：成龙 Lionel Richie | CCTV春晚 Jackie Chan and Lionel Richie singing "We are the World" in English and Mandarin. Love this. This was my favorite part of the whole new year show. 

(There are a lot of scenes in this video, and one of them is an ad for a car (???) but the "We are the World" part starts at 5:30.)

“秧BOT”进化成“武BOT”了！“赛博武术”登上春晚 一招一式尽显江湖侠气！「2026央视春晚」| CCTV春晚 This is amazing. It's a martial arts performance with both robots and humans. A lot of very impressive backflips from both the robots and the humans. This year the new year gala had several performances with robots- China wants to show off this cutting-edge technology.

开口跪！周深和孩子们同唱《吉量》！用清澈歌声勾勒出《山海经》里的神马 「2026央视春晚」| CCTV春晚 Children representing the unique cultures and traditional dress of Chinese minority ethnic groups.

开场就是马马马！众星云集《马上有奇迹》 新年祝福速来查收！「2026央视春晚」| CCTV春晚 Here's the opening dance number, really exciting, it's got everything: huge group of dancers, children with cute little horse hats.

[2026央视春晚]创意杂技《绘新春》 表演：Jonglissimo杂技团 河南省杂技集团 等 | CCTV春晚 This is a really cool juggling act. My favorite part is when the 2 performers are tossing the diabolo back and forth, and behind them is a giant animation of a lion, following its movement.

[2026央视春晚]中外舞蹈《踏地为节》 表演：中央民族大学 中央民族歌舞团 等（字幕版） | CCTV春晚 Spanish and Hungarian dancers, and also dancers from the Chinese Hani and Lisu ethnic minority groups.

[2026央视春晚]舞蹈《追影》 领舞：张翰 | CCTV春晚 Dancing and also flying around acrobatically on ropes. 

[2026央视春晚]《致爱组曲》 演唱：John Legend Westlife 等 | CCTV春晚 This one's in English. John Legend sings "All of Me." John Legend and Hélène Rollès sing "Beauty and the Beast." Westlife sings "My Love."

听完坐不住了！郭富城 王一博合作《闪耀动起来》燃爆舞台！「2026央视春晚」| CCTV春晚 I like this one, a high energy pop song, actually a mashup of 2 songs.

孟庆旸把雨跳成了诗！愿2026年 风调雨顺 万事可期！「2026央视春晚」| CCTV春晚 A beautiful dance where the backup dancers all have large flat hats with strings of beads hanging off, representing rain.

 

[2026央视春晚]多唱法创编歌曲《恭喜恭喜》 演唱：李楠 张怡 朱贺 等 | CCTV春晚 Wow everything about this is giving "Chinese New Year"- everyone is wearing their reddest clothes, doing the "make a fist and cover it with the other hand" gesture, saying "恭喜恭喜" over and over. Love it.

Happy Year of the Horse! 马年快乐！

(Also let me know if any of the links are broken- the CCTV youtube channel has been updating them as I've been working on this post and I've had to change some of the links.)