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The Chinese New Year is known as the Spring Festival because it starts from the beginning of spring．Though there are some sayings about its origin(起源), all agree that the word Nian, which in modern Chinese means“year”, was originally the name of a beast(野獸)that started to eat people the night before the beginning of a new year．
One story goes that the beast Nian had a very big mouth that would take in a great many people at one time．People were very afraid．One day, an old man came to their help and said he would stop all this．To Nian he said,“I hear that you are very strong, but can you eat up all the beasts on earth instead of people who are too weak to be your enemy?”“Yes,”Nian agreed with him and went to kill many of the beasts on earth．People were very happy because those beasts also did bad things to people and killed their farm animals from time to time．
After that, the old man, who was a god, rode on the beast Nian and left．Nian was gone, and other beasts also went into forests; people began to enjoy their happy life．Before the old man left．he had told people to put up red paper-cuts on their windows and doors at each year's end to drive Nian away, because red is the colour the beasts felt most afraid of．
From then on, every year at the beginning of spring, people“Guo Nian”．The word“Guo Nian”means“Go through the Nian safely”．Putting up red paper-cuts to drive Nian away and making dumplings for a better new year are still an every-year doing by the Chinese people．However, people today have long forgotten why they are doing all this, they just feel the colour and the food make the New Year very．enjoyable．
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