Wondering what to do for 除夕 New Year’s Eve to help welcome in the Year of the Tiger? Sure, there’s useful stuff, like cleaning to start the new year fresh. Luckily, there are plenty of fun things you can also easily do from home to put yourself in the Lunar New Year spirit! Check out this selection of the best Douyin Activities to celebrate 虎年 (hǔ nián)! (That’s the year of the tiger in Mandarin Chinese).

新年快乐! Happy Chinese New Year from the Nincha Team

Special Year of the Tiger Activities

2022 is going to be the year of the Tiger. More specifically, the water tiger.  To celebrate, there’s a special themed course on Ninchanese!

Learn all about the Year of the Tiger in a special themed course on Ninchanese

The Year of the Tiger will hold no mystery for you once you’ve completed this mini-course!

The Chinese New Year course is full of essential words and sentences to learn in Chinese. You’ll also find meowsome dialogues to teach you the fun customs around Chinese New Year celebrations. Purrfect to learn all about the Year of the Tiger in Chinese! From a Tiger Zodiac Sign’s personality, to what it means to be a Tiger in 2022, you’ll be learning a lot and enjoying yourself at the same time!

Plus: Enjoy 30% all Ninchanese Premium plans with the code TIGERCNY! 
Just enter it at checkout and this meowsome offer is yours!

These special treats are only here for the next two weeks until the Lunar New Year ends, so don’t miss out!

Since we’re ushering in the year of the Tiger 2022, making tiger decorations is also a must! Besides, tigers are soo cute, so why fight it?

Make little tigers out of clementines

These little tigers made out of clementines are just purrfect and cheap to make:

Put together bouncy tigers

Out of clementines at home? Try making these bouncy tigers instead!

Make paper cutouts

Chinese paper cutting is a delicate art. In Chinese, paper cutouts are called 剪纸 (jiǎn zhǐ). You’ll also run into them called 窗花 (chuāng huā)
It’s very traditional for Chinese New Year for families to make paper cutouts together. With these fairly simple Douyin videos you can make your own too!

Make a purrfect tiger cut-out (虎年窗花)

This is what the Nincha Team made following this tutorial. It really is pretty easy to follow!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ninchanese (@chinese_nincha)

Not directly related to the Tiger zodiac sign, it’s always a good idea to give your household double happiness with this Douyin tutorial.

More Chinese New Year 2022 activities

In addition to these super cute manual activities to welcome in the Year of the Tiger and make the Tiger Zodiac Sign right at home, there’s a lot more meowsome stuff you can do! The goal? To make the coming Year of the Tiger auspicious and a prosperous year.

Put together 红包 – red envelopes

Elders traditionally give 红包 to the younger members of the family. Inside, you’ll usually find money, but as you can see in these videos, candy is an excellent little treat too!

Don’t want traditional-looking 红包? How about candy-shaped ones, then?

If you prefer presenting your treats that way, here’s an excellent Douyin tutorial to make some yourself!

Make dumplings

First, follow our guide for a successful dumpling party! Then, watch these videos for easy folding techniques.

Or do they make it look easy? We’ll be trying these techniques tonight so fingers crossed!

Make coin shaped dumplings for prosperity

Or fold them the traditional 饺子 way!

Sing the New Year song

新年好
新年好呀…

Fair warning: Set to a tune you’ll no doubt recognize (Oh My Darling Clementine), the Chinese New Year song is a song that can easily stay stuck in your head.
Learn the lyrics here and then learn how to sing it with this cute Douyin tutorial.

Dress up

Another good way to prepare yourself for the Year of the Tiger is to put on new clothes, red items of clothing particularly, and dress up nicely. That activity is always lovely to do! So don new clothes and even meowsome hairpieces, like this one below:

Throw fireworks

Fireworks are a big must to celebrate the Chinese New Year. If you’re out of fireworks or noisy things are banned in your area, try this dish featured a lot of 抖音 instead.

Draw lots of Chinese New Year-related decorations

Lanterns, coins, coin-shaped things (for luck), golden elements (for more chance), fish … there are plenty of auspicious shapes to choose from!

Here’s a 抖音 hack to easily draw Chinese New Year themed knickknacks:

Who knew numbers could be so helpful?

It’s meant for kids, but we won’t tell if you don’t!

Hang up a lot of 福 upside down

You can place them on cards…

You can place them on your windows, on your walls…

Well, maybe not literally on your walls.

Just make sure you have a lot of upside-down 福 (fú) to bring yourself good luck in the coming year.

This concludes our round-up of 抖音 videos and Tiktok tutorials to celebrate the Year of the Tiger 2022! Have fun with these arts and crafts and have a prosperous year of the Tiger!

Speaking of fun stuff, here’s another cool thing for you: a Lunar New Year themed course!

A unique Chinese New Year world on Ninchanese

Come do the Chinese New Year course! It’s a free themed mini-world that’s only available during one special period of the year, and that’s during the Chinese Spring Festival!

A hot new course specially for the Chinese New Year

36 Stages full of essential words and sentences to learn in Chinese. To go with it, meowsome dialogues to teach you all about the pawwsitively fun customs that go hand in hand with the Chinese New Year celebrations. Purrfect to learn all about the Spring Festival and the Year of the Tiger in Chinese. From what to do on New Year’s eve to the Lantern Festival, you’ll be learning a lot and will love doing that!

This special world is only here for the next two weeks until the Lunar New Year ends, so don’t miss out!

And one more thing…

If you want to continue learning Chinese with authentic and entertaining content, then you’ll love Ninchanese.

With Ninchanese, you get a complete method to learn Chinese which has you speaking, reading, writing, and more in Chinese. What’s more, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, there’s content your level on Ninchanese and plenty more!

Start using Ninchanese on the web, with your computer or tablet, or, for Chinese learning in your pocket and on the go, download the Ninchanese app from the Google Play Store.

The Nincha Team

Stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Try the best way to learn Chinese today.
Ninchanese is free to use!

Sign up now

P.S: Do you have the Chinese New Year song stuck in your head now too? Purrfect to put you in the Year of The Tiger spirit!

The post Best Douyin Activities to Celebrate the Year of the Tiger appeared first on Ninchanese.

Image source: CGTN

What is Xiaonian?

Xiaonian is often called the prologue of the Spring Festival because it kicks off preparations for the upcoming Chinese New Year. It’s also a special day for the Kitchen God, ZaoShen (Chinese: 灶君; pinyin: Zào Jun; literally “stove master).
That’s because today, on 小年 xiǎo nián, the Kitchen God is going to return to “Heaven”. (That’s if you’re in the North of China. For the South of China, that’ll happen tomorrow).

The Kitchen God, Zao Shen. Source: Project Gutenberg

There, he’ll make his report to the other gods that stayed in Heaven, and especially to the Jade Emperor – he’s considered the King of the Taoists deities (Chinese: 玉皇; pinyin: Yù Huáng. Also called 玉帝 Yù Dì).

With the Chinese New Year special course on Ninchanese, start preparing for the Spring Festival too! 

What is The Kitchen God reporting?

The Kitchen God has one specific mission: to report on what happened in each household over the past year. He’ll particularly weigh how good or bad the family was. That way, the Jade Emperor can decide accordingly to reward or punish each household. So if you were good, good fortunes await you in the coming new year of the Tiger, and if you were terrible… well, you won’t be so lucky.

The Sweetest event: Nian Gao cakes and more

Good thing, though: the Kitchen God can easily be bribed… or at least tempted because he’s very partial to sweets. Just rub something sweet on his lips, like a bit of sugar, honey, or the traditional 年糕 (nián gāo) cake. The goal? To make sure he sweet-talks the Jade Emperor! He should also be grateful because he’ll be getting a great homemade scrub at the same time.

Curious to know what a 年糕 is? Watch this!

In addition to sweets, the Kitchen God is often also offered food, in case he gets hungry on the way up. Usually, his heaven-ascending horse is also given water and grass to make the journey. So be considerate and treat them. You want them to put in a good word for you!

The other good news? You get to eat candy too on Xiaonian! Especially the chewy, sticky, sesame kind. Like this maybe. 

The second item of good news: As the Kitchen God is a family’s moral compass, once he’s gone, you’re free of any moral surveillance. Technically. So why not? Go party, drink, and enjoy yourself. Act quick, the kitchen God will be back soon.
Just make sure to stuff your face with candy too, because if your mouth is full of candy, you won’t be able to bad-mouth others! Think of it as the Kitchen God’s parting gift!

And that’s how 小年 is a lesson on the importance of sweets!

Clean your house for the Lunar New Year

The bot so good news? Once the Kitchen God is sent off (usually by burning a paper version of him), cleaning season is officially in full swing.

Spring Cleaning, Spring Festival style. Source: CGTN

The goal is to get your house squeaky clean and to turn Obsessive-Compulsive when it comes to dust, as there can’t be any left at all when the Chinese New Year swings around! This year, there’s a particular focus on making your house fully anti-virus too.

Otherwise, you risk starting the new lunar year on the wrong paw. This is soon, since, on February 1st, we’ll all be ringing in the Year of the Tiger! That’s a little over a week from now.

So, are you planning on bribing the Kitchen God and on cleaning your house to prepare for the New Year? Or are you planning on skipping all this and Just celebrating the fun stuff?? Let us know!

Speaking of fun stuff, here’s something cool for you: a Lunar New Year themed course!

A unique Chinese New Year world on Ninchanese!

Discover the Chinese New Year course. It’s a themed mini-world that’s only available during one special period of the year, and that’s during the Chinese Spring Festival!

36 Stages full of essential words and sentences to learn in Chinese, and meowsome dialogues to teach you all about the pawwsitively fun customs that go hand in hand with the Chinese New Year celebrations. Purrfect to learn all about the Spring Festival and the Year of the Tiger in Chinese. From what to do on New Year’s eve to the Lantern Festival, you’ll be learning a lot and will love doing that!

This special world is only here for the next two weeks until the Lunar New Year ends, so don’t miss out!

And one more thing…

If you want to continue learning Chinese with authentic and entertaining content, then you’ll love Ninchanese.

With Ninchanese, you get a complete method to learn Chinese which has you speaking, reading, writing, and more in Chinese. What’s more, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, there’s content your level on Ninchanese and plenty more! From HSK-based courses to a Chinese Business course, you have your pick of Chinese to learn!

Start using Ninchanese on the web, with your computer or tablet, or, for Chinese learning in your pocket and on the go, download the Ninchanese app from the Google Play Store.

The Nincha Team

Stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Try the best way to learn Chinese today.
Ninchanese is free to use!

Sign up now

The post Xiaonian: Kick-off Chinese New Year with sweets appeared first on Ninchanese.