The two Chinese New Year greetings you need are xin nian kuai le (新年快乐), "happy new year," and gongxi facai (恭喜发财), "wishing you prosperity." Say either one to anyone during the season and you'll get a warm smile — and usually the same wish right back.
The two greetings you need
Xin nian kuai le is the all-purpose "happy new year," right for anyone — family, friends, or your hotel's front desk. Gongxi facai is the festive classic; it literally wishes you wealth in the year ahead, which is the whole spirit of the season.
If gongxi facai rings a bell in a slightly different shape, that's because its Cantonese cousin — "kung hei fat choi" — is the version on Chinatown banners worldwide. Same characters, same wish, different dialect.
新年快乐
xin nian kuai le
Happy new year
恭喜发财
gongxi facai
Wishing you prosperity
Wishing someone well
Want to go beyond the basics? The little phrase zhu ni (祝你), "I wish you," lets you attach almost any blessing. Two favorites are shenti jiankang (身体健康), "good health," and wanshi ruyi (万事如意), "may all go as you wish." String zhu ni in front of either and you have a warm, personal greeting.
祝你
zhu ni
I wish you…
身体健康
shenti jiankang
Good health
万事如意
wanshi ruyi
May everything go as you wish
What Spring Festival is
The holiday itself is chunjie (春节), the Spring Festival — the lunar new year, falling in late January or February. It's the biggest holiday in China by far, and it sets off the world's largest annual travel rush, chunyun (春运), as the country pours out of the cities and heads home to family.
The zodiac animal flips over at chunjie too; for which animal rules the year, see our guide to the Chinese zodiac. The festivities run a full fifteen days, ending with the Lantern Festival, yuanxiao jie (元宵节).
The traditions behind the words
The heart of it all is the reunion dinner, nianyefan (年夜饭), on New Year's Eve, and much of what's on the table is edible wordplay. Fish is served because "nian nian you yu" (年年有余), "surplus year after year," puns on yu — 鱼 (fish) sounds just like 余 (surplus). Families even leave some fish uneaten on purpose, to carry that surplus into the new year. Up north, everyone folds jiaozi (饺子), dumplings, together.
Children and unmarried adults receive hongbao (红包), red envelopes of cash. The color is always red, the bills are crisp and new, and the amounts favor lucky eight while avoiding unlucky four. These days digital hongbao fly around WeChat by the hundreds of millions.
Legend says a monster named Nian (年) once menaced villages each new year — until people discovered it feared loud noises and the color red. That's the story behind the firecrackers and the sea of red decorations you'll see everywhere.
Doorways get chunlian (春联), paired red banners of poetry, and the character fu (福), "good fortune," often goes up upside down. The reason is another pun: "fu dao le" (福倒了), "fu is upside down," sounds exactly like 福到了, "fortune has arrived."
Keep learning Chinese
Learn just xin nian kuai le and gongxi facai and you can join in anywhere the lanterns are hung — from Beijing to your local Chinatown. Pick up more celebration vocabulary with our free essential Chinese phrases, then practice the tones with audio in the Pretalk app, so your new year wishes ring out clearly.
