雅思口语素材：中国农历新年(下)

　　Luo, Bo Bin writes:

　　Im a Chinese reader of this article, as a Chinese I think maybe the writer of this article have some misunderstanding about Chinese New Year, or maybe all the author tells us is just the customs of the place which he/she visited.

　　1. As far as I know on the second day of Chinese most of the people in China dont treat dogs as well as the author said and as a Chinese I have never heard about the Dogs Birthday.

　　2. On the fifth day of Chinese New Year so far as I know people can do anything they like before this I never knew if you visit friends and families it will bring bad luck.

　　3. At Chinese New Year its a Chinese tradition to have a family reunion dinner but this dinner is not on the eighth day of Chinese New Year, it is held on the last night of the previous year.

　　4. Not only parents give their children money in lucky red envelopes, you must give the red bags to your family members children or even your friends children. The red bags are not given on the Lantern Festival, they are given on the first day of the new year, and not only given to the children, but to the old people also.

　　Maybe some places have special customers - you know China is such a big country - but in my personal thinking the author doesnt know Chinese New Year very well. Im Chinese and in the last 20 years I have visited lots of places in China, and I think that what I have told you is the real Chinese New Year.

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　　This is what the author replies:

　　I am not Chinese and I did research on the subject through a number of different books and websites, so it could be that some of the information I found is true in certain parts of China, but not practised everywhere. As the writer says, China is a very big country and it is also a country which is changing very fast, so maybe some of the traditions I mention are not followed as closely as they may once have been.

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　　Pham Thuy Diep writes:

　　I am Vietnamese and we have also a Lunar New Year like China. We often have a reunion dinner on the last day of the previous year. This is a rather important event so every member of the family tries his/ her best to gather on this day.

　　On the first day of a new year, people dont want to be the first to visit another persons house as they are afraid that their visit will bring something bad to that house . In fact, we believe that there is a cycle of 12 years. Each year in this cycle corresponds with one kind of animal, beginning with the mouse and then followed by the buffalo, tiger, cat, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, cock, dog, and pig. If this year is the year of the pig, it is bad for people who were born in the year of the tiger to come first in the New Year. This is a very old tradition and we dont know how to explain it.