Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival, is officially a 3-day national holiday from 7th to 9th February 2008 to the Chinese community. All business in China will be closed as the Chinese New Year will affect the entire month of February. Chinese New Year is really a huge celebration in China.

Do you know that in China, all banks, shipping companies, offices, and factories will be closed for at least the first two weeks of February?

If you are importing from China, you may want to take note of this, either order your stocks and have them delivered to you before February or do it in March, as exports will be literally disrupted in the entire month of February.

You don’t want to be running out of stocks when 1.4 billions hard-working Chinese people take their well-earned rest.

If you are buying from Chinese sellers on eBay (e.g. Hong Kong, China, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore) do take note of their last shipping date and when the seller will be back in business.

Here’s a little story about how Chinese New Year came about and in case you are wondering why us Chinese love lots of reds

According to legend, in ancient China, the Nián (年) was actually a man-eating beast from the mountains (in other versions from under the sea), which came out every 12 months somewhere close to winter to prey on humans. The people found out that Nian was sensitive to loud noises and the colour red, so they scared it away with explosions, fireworks and the liberal use of red colour. These customs led to the first New Year celebrations. Guò nián (Simplified Chinese: 过年; traditional Chinese: 過年), which means to celebrate the new year, literally means the passover of the Nian. [Wikipedia]

Happy Chinese New Year!