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How to Celebrate Chinese New Year.
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Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year, is celebrated throughout the world in late January or early February.
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Here's how to celebrate.
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You will need the correct date, traditional foods, new, red clothing, red envelopes and red paper lantern.
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Optional: firecrackers and drums and gongs.
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Step 1. Find the next date of Chinese New Year, which changes with the lunar cycle.
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Learn which of the 12 zodiac animals is associated with that year's celebration.
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Step 2. Before the Chinese New Year arrives, clean your house, and settle any outstanding debts with friends.
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According to tradition, this helps the new year get off to a fresh start.
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Clean the headstones of deceased relatives and friends to ensure spiritual favor.
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Step 3. Get together with friends and family on the eve of Chinese New Year for a reunion dinner, a large, celebratory feast.
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Make a batch of "nian gao", steamed cakes made with rice flour, which are said to bring good luck.
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Step 4. Buy new, red clothes to wear throughout the Chinese New Year celebration; the color is considered lucky.
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Step 5. Give red envelopes filled with money to friends and relatives to invite success and generosity into everyone's lives.
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Use an amount ending in 8, which is particularly lucky in Chinese culture, and avoid the number 4.
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Step 6. Attend a Chinese New Year parade.
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One of the most popular ways to celebrate the holiday's hopeful spirit.
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You can also light firecrackers and bang drums and gongs to celebrate.
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Only use firecrackers or fireworks under close supervision. Know the laws governing explosives where you live.
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Step 7. On the 15th night of the new year, light a red paper lantern to mark the end of the holiday.
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Then, wish your friends and family "Gong Xi Fa Tsai," and prepare for 12 months of prosperity and luck.
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Did you know? In 1980, the Chinese were the 10th-largest immigrant group in the US;
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by 2006, they had become the third-largest.