Festival names across languages and spellings
Chinese festival names
Chinese festival names appear in English as translations, Mandarin pinyin and established regional spellings. Qīngmíng and Qingming are the same Mandarin name with and without tone marks; Ching Ming is a regional rendering of the same written name, 清明. Tomb-Sweeping Festival identifies the occasion through its practice of tending family graves.
The table gives Mandarin pinyin with tone marks. Jié (节), as in Yuánxiāo Jié, means “festival” in these names.
Month and day numbers below refer to lunar months and days. They identify the customary festival date, rather than the length of a holiday or celebration. Qingming and Dongzhi follow solar-term dates instead.
Common names and their date rules
| Chinese name and pinyin | English names and other labels | Date or calendar basis |
|---|---|---|
| 春节 — Chūnjié | Spring Festival; Chinese New Year | Lunar month 1, day 1 begins the new year. |
| 元宵节 — Yuánxiāo Jié | Lantern Festival; Spring Lantern Festival; Yuanxiao | Lunar month 1, day 15. |
| 清明 — Qīngmíng | Qingming; Tomb-Sweeping Festival; Ching Ming | The Qingming solar-term date, normally in early April. |
| 端午 — Duānwǔ | Dragon Boat Festival; Duanwu | Lunar month 5, day 5. |
| 七夕 — Qīxī | Seventh Night; Double Seventh; also associated with Qǐqiǎo, “seeking skill” | Lunar month 7, day 7. |
| 中元 — Zhōngyuán | Zhongyuan; often grouped under Hungry Ghost Festival or seventh-month observances | Lunar month 7, day 15; community observances can extend through the month. |
| 中秋 — Zhōngqiū | Mid-Autumn Festival; Moon Festival; also Mooncake Festival in Singapore usage | Lunar month 8, day 15. |
| 重阳 — Chóngyáng | Double Ninth Festival; Chung Yeung in Hong Kong usage | Lunar month 9, day 9. |
| 冬至 — Dōngzhì | Winter Solstice observance; Winter Solstice Festival | The winter-solstice solar-term date in December. |
| 腊八 — Làbā | Laba Festival; Laba | Lunar month 12, day 8. In Chinese Buddhist observance, the date commemorates the Buddha’s enlightenment. |
Names that are easily confused
Spring Festival and Beginning of Spring are different calendar entries. Chūnjié, the Spring Festival, begins the lunar year. Lìchūn, Beginning of Spring, is a solar term in early February. The two follow different date rules and need not fall on the same day.
Lantern Festival and Spring Lantern Festival both name Yuanxiao. This is the festival on lunar month 1, day 15, at the close of the New Year celebrations. “Spring” in the longer English name specifies that New Year setting.
Qixi, Qiqiao and “Chinese Valentine’s Day” emphasize different aspects of one festival. Qīxī means “Seventh Night,” while “Double Seventh” points to its seventh-month, seventh-day date. Qǐqiǎo, “seeking skill,” refers to girls and women asking the Weaver Girl for skill, especially in needlework. In the festival’s legend, the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd are lovers separated by the Milky Way who reunite once a year across a bridge of magpies. “Chinese Valentine’s Day” is a modern nickname emphasizing their love story.
Yulanpen, Ullambana and “Ghost Festival”
Yúlánpén (盂兰盆) and Ullambana name a Chinese Buddhist observance associated with lunar month 7, day 15. Worshippers make offerings to the monastic community, or Sangha, and dedicate the merit—the spiritual benefit of these good acts—to parents and ancestors. Its scriptural story tells of the Buddha’s disciple Maudgalyayana, known in Chinese as Mùlián, seeking help for his deceased mother. The Buddha instructs him to make offerings to the monastic community so that their collective merit can relieve her suffering.
Zhōngyuán names the same month’s fifteenth-day observance in a Daoist setting. It is associated with the Earth Official, one of the Three Officials, who is believed to grant pardon for wrongdoing. Hungry Ghost Festival or Ghost Festival is a broader English label for overlapping seventh-month observances: remembering ancestors, making offerings to wandering spirits and holding community celebrations. A Yulanpen service, a Zhongyuan rite and a neighborhood festival can belong to the same season while naming different activities.
Regional names
Regional names can reflect local pronunciation, identify a particular form of observance or use a different title for the same deity.
Yu Lan in Hong Kong
Yu Lan (盂兰; Mandarin Yúlán) is an established Hong Kong name for seventh-month observances honoring ancestors and making offerings to wandering spirits. Its name is related to Yulanpen, but its use extends to community festivals, including those of the Chiu Chow community, with Buddhist or Daoist rites. It can therefore identify more than a single Buddhist service.
Phor Thor in Penang
Phor Thor is a local name for Penang’s seventh-month Hungry Ghost Festival. It covers community observances that include street altars and offerings. Individual communities hold their celebrations at different points during the seventh lunar month, so the name does not imply a single shared festival day.
Tin Hau and Mazu
Tin Hau is the established Cantonese rendering of 天后, read Tiānhòu in Mandarin and meaning “Empress of Heaven.” It is a title of Māzǔ (妈祖), the sea goddess. Tin Hau’s birthday and Mazu’s birthday therefore name the same customary anniversary: lunar month 3, day 23.
Names in neighboring traditions
Lunar New Year is a broad English term that can include Chinese New Year, Vietnamese Tết and Korean Seollal. Those individual names identify distinct festival traditions. Likewise, Chuseok and Tanabata retain their own identities even where dates or written characters resemble Chinese festival names. The month-and-day dates below belong to the calendar used by the community concerned.
| Name | Calendar relationship | What the name identifies |
|---|---|---|
| Tết / Tết Nguyên Đán | Vietnamese New Year, beginning on lunar month 1, day 1 in the Vietnamese calendar. | A Vietnamese festival of family visits and ancestral remembrance, with foods such as bánh chưng, square sticky-rice cakes. |
| Seollal — 설날 | Korean New Year, on lunar month 1, day 1 in the Korean calendar. | A Korean occasion associated with family gatherings, New Year bows and foods such as tteokguk, sliced-rice-cake soup. |
| Chuseok — 추석 | The Korean harvest festival on lunar month 8, day 15. Its date pattern resembles that of Mid-Autumn Festival. | Korean harvest celebrations with ancestral remembrance, family meals and songpyeon, filled rice cakes. |
| Tanabata — 七夕 | A Japanese star festival associated with the seventh day of the seventh month, now observed under several date conventions. | A Japanese festival sharing the written characters and star-lovers legend of Qixi. A familiar custom is hanging wishes written on paper strips from bamboo branches. |
Tanabata: three different date conventions
Tanabata may be observed on Gregorian July 7, on a one-month-delayed date around August 7, or on a lunisolar-derived date. July 7 and August 7 are fixed dates in the Gregorian calendar; the lunisolar-derived date changes from year to year.
The modern name Traditional Tanabata refers to a date approximating the old lunisolar seventh-month seventh day. Moving a celebration from July 7 to August 7 is a fixed one-month shift, not a conversion of that old-calendar date. Local celebrations may run for several days around whichever date they follow.