Tradition : Chinese New Year

The New Year for the Mien people usually falls on the same day as the Chinese New Year around 14-16 February. There is a ritual on the eve of the New Year, where the villagers will prepare offerings for the ceremony, such as gold and silver incense papers and fire woods for the ritual. On this day, the villagers cannot go to work or pick fire woods and instead, the villagers will make a sweet called “JeabFueiYou” in Mien language.

	The Mien people believe that on the 14th, it is a day for Man. The villagers do not go to work in the fields, or go hunting. On this day the villagers will give offerings to the ancestors’ spirits which follows an ancient belief that it is a day where the gods and goddesses will have a big cerebration.
In every household, the people give credits or apologize to the spirit and let them free, the grandchildren will burn the silver and gold incense paper to the ancestor spirits for them to buy things in the nether world.         On the 15th, the ancestor spirits will return to protect and take care of the grandchild, which means that the spirit is freed and have came to eat the food that the grandchildren had offered. This day the villagers do not go to work in the fields because the spirits are returning home, and if a person is not careful, will step on the spirit and fall sick. The people from outside can not enter the village also. They also forbid cutting of banana leaves because the Mien people believe that the spirits will use these leaves to take the food back to the nether world. Another reason is that the Mien people believe that one leaf represents one spirit, and so they do not cut the leaves on this day.

On the16th, the villagers will go back to work again because they believe that the spirits have returned and cannot create trouble. The Mien people will perform the rituals every year to offer food to the spirits so that the spirits will protect their families and their village.

http://mien.hilltribe.org/english/