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Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, begins on the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar; many celebrations continue through the Lantern Festival on day 15. For a cartoon illustration, show the customs as a sequence—preparations, reunion, visits, and lanterns—rather than suggesting one image represents every Chinese family. The examples below draw mainly on official guides describing customs in China, including Shanghai-specific practices.
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What are Chinese New Year traditions?
Spring Festival is a Chinese holiday tied to the Chinese calendar, not a catch-all for every tradition observed around the Lunar New Year. Its Gregorian date changes each year. Reunion and connection are prominent themes: families may gather for a New Year’s Eve meal, then exchange greetings and visit relatives in the days that follow. Customs differ among regions, families, and communities, so treat the scenes here as documented examples, not a universal checklist.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsThe State Council of the People’s Republic of China, in a January 28, 2025 overview, quotes UNESCO’s description: “In China, the Spring Festival marks the beginning of the new year. It falls on the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar.” Read the government overview of Spring Festival.
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What to draw before Spring Festival
Preparations make a natural opening scene in a cartoon. A government overview describes families cleaning, preparing food, putting on new clothes, and decorating homes with red couplets, paper-cut window decorations, and New Year posters. It also notes Laba porridge as a seasonal custom and Little New Year as a time associated with honoring the Kitchen God and cleaning. These are customs followed by some families, not required steps for everyone.
- Show family members cleaning or preparing food together.
- Use red couplets on a doorway and paper-cut decorations in a window.
- If including Laba porridge or the Kitchen God, make the scene distinct from New Year’s Eve rather than combining every custom in one frame.
How to draw New Year’s Eve customs
Chuxi is New Year’s Eve, the final day of the Chinese calendar year. A Shanghai government guide describes it as a major reunion occasion, with a family meal, door decorations, staying awake together, and elders giving red envelopes to younger family members. For a readable illustration, let the meal and the people around it carry the scene; place decorations around the doorway or in the background.
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Couplets, 福, and window paper-cuts
Red Spring Festival couplets are displayed on doors. The character 福 means good fortune and may also be put up upside down. The wordplay is that 倒 (dào, upside down) sounds like 到 (dào, arrive), suggesting “good fortune arrives.” It is a sound-based pun, not a literal explanation of the custom’s historical origin.
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Paper-cut “window flowers” can use exaggerated designs and feature fish, longevity symbols, fortune, or reunion. Keep 福 legible if you use it; a decorative, reversed character should still read as 福 when viewed upside down.
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Reunion dinner and food symbolism
Food traditions vary. A Shanghai guide notes fish as a familiar New Year’s Eve dish: 鱼 (yú, fish) sounds like 余 (yú, surplus), making it a symbol of having something left over. Some northern families eat dumplings; the name is associated in folk explanation with the transition between the old and new year. Present both as wordplay or symbolism rather than as a single origin story or universal menu.
New Year’s Day: greetings, visits, and red envelopes
In a Shanghai government account, younger relatives greet elders, families visit and exchange gifts, and elders give red envelopes to younger family members. Greetings such as 新年好 (xīn nián hǎo) and 新年快乐 (xīn nián kuài lè) can appear on a card or speech bubble. Use the Chinese characters accurately, and avoid presenting one household’s visiting pattern as a rule for all families.
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Food examples also vary by region: the Shanghai guide identifies dumplings as common in the north and glutinous rice balls or rice cakes as examples in the south. These are broad regional examples, not strict boundaries; family practice may differ. The same guide mentions ancestor respect and folk taboos, but those are not necessary elements in every illustration.
What happens at the Lantern Festival?
The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the first Chinese-calendar month and is the last major occasion of Spring Festival. Familiar customs described in a Shanghai guide include viewing lanterns, solving lantern riddles, and eating glutinous rice balls. Tangyuan may have sweet or savory fillings; tangyuan and tuanyuan (团圆, reunion) echo one another in sound and meaning.
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For a final panel, draw people looking at lanterns, with a riddle attached to one lantern and bowls of tangyuan nearby. This gives the scene a clear closing moment without implying that every celebration looks alike.
How to plan a cartoon Spring Festival illustration
- Choose a sequence. Sketch separate moments for decorating, the New Year’s Eve reunion, greetings or visits, and the Lantern Festival.
- Make each custom readable. Use couplets and 福 for the doorway, shared dishes for the reunion, a red envelope for a greeting visit, and lanterns or riddles for the final scene.
- Signal regional variation. Use a caption or parallel food details for dumplings, tangyuan, or rice cakes instead of presenting one as the sole festival food.
- Separate custom from invention. Cartoon expressions and playful character designs are artistic choices; don’t imply they are traditional customs unless they are documented as such.
- Check year-specific details. Zodiac imagery changes from year to year. Confirm the relevant animal and calendar date if the illustration names a particular year.
There is a historical basis for drawing the holiday through illustrated forms: a National Museum of China exhibition record describes more than 100 objects related to Spring Festival customs, including paintings, illustrated books, New Year pictures, and paper cuts. That is the count for the exhibition, not a count of all festival artifacts. See the National Museum of China exhibition record.
Contemporary lanterns offer another source of visual inspiration. A Shanghai government account says the Yuyuan Lantern Festival was first launched in 1995 and designated national intangible cultural heritage in 2011. Its account of the 2019 edition describes a cartoon God of Wealth pig lantern nine meters tall—one documented design, not a typical lantern size. The same page notes a horse-themed edition for 2026, a reminder to verify the zodiac animal for the year being illustrated. Read the Shanghai account of Yuyuan Lantern Festival designs.
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