“Several festivals are celebrated in Taiwan every year. For visitors, festivals can be both an enjoyable and colorful experience. For Taiwanese people, it’s a great way to keep Taiwanese culture alive in today’s world and get a day off work! Most of Taiwan’s festivals go by the lunar calendar and their Western calendar date changes every year. Chinese New Year falls on January 1st on the lunar calendar, and it is the biggest event on the Chinese cultural calendar. It generally occurs around the end of January to early February on the Western calendar. During Chinese New Year, families come together, eat, and enjoy each other’s company no matter how far apart they live. Traditionally, special foods such as sticky rice and year cakes are prepared. The words for “year cake” are pronounced like “rise in the coming year” in Chinese. So, people eat the cakes to wish for a good year. Some of the cakes are sweet because the Chinese believe that having sweet food can bring about good luck in the New Year. There are several unusual beliefs about Chinese New Year. People don’t like to sweep the floor during Chinese New Year because they don’t want to sweep away good fortune along with the dirt. They also don’t take out the garbage until the fifth day of Chinese New Year. During Chinese New Year, Taiwanese people visit relatives and pay respects to the god of wealth. On the second day of the New Year, married couples go to the wife’s house and spend time with her parents. At this time, houses are decorated with flowers and couplets or congratulatory speeches written on red paper. Red is considered lucky and white represents death. Therefore, red is emphasized and white is discouraged during the holiday. Children and elderly people often receive gifts of money in red envelopes. Eventually, firecrackers are set off and families go out into the streets to enjoy traditional folk activities such as lion dances. Not so many people believe in old ideas about good or bad fortune nowadays. However, people still like to follow the old traditions. 台灣每年有好幾個節日。對觀光客而言，節慶不但好玩，而且是一種多采多姿的經驗；對台灣人而言，節日在現代社會有助於文化保存，還能放一天假！大多數台灣節慶都是看農曆，因此每年的國曆日期都不一樣。 農曆一月一日開始是中國新年，這是漢文化裡的大日子。這天的國曆日期通常落在一月底到二月初。農曆新年間，家人無論相隔多遠，都會團聚吃飯、相伴。傳統上會準備一些特別的食物，像是糯米和年糕。「年糕」這個詞的中文發音像是「年年高升」，因此，人們吃年糕祈求來年一切順利。有些年糕做成甜的，因為中國人相信「吃甜甜，過好年」。 農曆新年有一些特殊的習俗。人們在過年期間不喜歡掃地，因為不想把好運跟著灰塵一起掃掉，而且要等到大年初五才會把垃圾拿出去倒。 台灣人在過年期間會拜訪親戚，也要拜財神。大年初二時，已婚夫婦要回娘家，和妻子的父母一起過年。 此時，家家戶戶裝飾著花卉，並且貼上寫著賀辭的紅聯。紅色被認為是幸運的顏色，白色則代表死亡。因此過年期間會多用紅色，而避用白色。小孩和長輩通常會收到裝了壓歲錢的紅包。最後，大家會放鞭炮，全家人一起上街觀賞舞獅之類的傳統民俗活動。 如今已沒有那麼多人相信好運厄運的老觀念，不過大家還是喜歡遵循這些老傳統。 | 
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