Dong New Year

Dong New Year is a traditional festival for the Dong Ethnic People living in southeast Guizhou. The date for that occasion varies according to regions but it commonly falls on the period from 1st day of the eleventh lunar month to the 11th day. However, there are exceptions and in some particular villages, the festival takes place in the tenth month. The reason for beginning the year at that time is that it is the time after autumn harvest. In another word, this is the time for rest and relaxation after a year’s toil.

The Dong New Year is a very important occasion for the Dong Ethnic people as the New Year Festival to the Han Chinese. Days before the New Year, Dong people make new clothes, clean their houses, make glutinous rice cakes, slaughter pigs, cattle for feasts. On the even of the New Year, the Dong ethnic people usually prepare a course of dish called” cold dish”, which is cooked with bean curd and home mage vinegar. People expose the cooked dish to the cold air and let it frozen. The “cold dish” is the sacrifice to ancestors.