Chinese New Year, also known as the "Spring Festival" (simplified Chinese 春节; traditional Chinese 春節; Pinyin: Chūn Jié) in modern Mainland China, is an important Chinese festival celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar.

Celebrations traditionally run from the evening preceding the first day, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first calendar month.

The first day of the New Year falls on the new moon between 21 January and 20 February.

In 2017, the first day of the Chinese New Year was on Saturday, 28 January, initiating the year of the Rooster.

The Rat is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.

The Year of the Rat is associated with the Earthly Branch symbol .

Year of the Rat is the leap year.

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion.

The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing.

It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing) and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), also claiming sovereignty over Taiwan.

The country's major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong.

China is a great power and a major regional power within Asia, and has been characterized as a potential superpower.

A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law on which normal activities, especially business or work, are suspended or reduced.

Generally, holidays are intended to allow individuals to celebrate or commemorate an event or tradition of cultural or religious significance.

Holidays may be designated by governments, religious institutions, or other groups or organizations.

The degree to which normal activities are reduced by a holiday may depend on local laws, customs, the type of job being held or even personal choices.

A taboo is a vehement prohibition of an action based on the belief that such behavior is either too sacred or too for ordinary individuals to undertake.

Such prohibitions are present in virtually all societies.

The word has been somewhat expanded in the social sciences to strong prohibitions relating to any area of human activity or custom that is sacred or forbidden based on moral judgment and religious beliefs.

"Breaking a taboo" is usually considered objectionable by society in general, not merely a subset of a culture.