Chinese "Halloween" days

Today all the English speaking world is celebrating Halloween. This holiday is well known throughout the world, and I'm sure you know the history of the holiday. Even if not, you can find a lot of information going to Youtube and finding a lot of videos, telling about the way we can celebrate the holiday, the origin of the holiday, and even a lot of instructions of how to make a fancy dress or a scary make-up for the night!

What I am going to tell you about today is not Halloween as we all know it, but about Chinese holidays, which have something in common with this European one.

As we all know on the day of Halloween ghosts and the dead are supposed to come to the world of alive. In China there are 4 holidays which are somehow connected with the dead, ghosts, souls and all things like that. 

All these 4 holidays have one common name 鬼节 (guǐjié) - these are the days when people of China remember the dead.

Today i will tell you about the day which is called 中元节(zhōngyuánjié), or The Ghost Day. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the 7th Lunar month. There is a very interesting legend about the holiday.

Every year on this day Yanwang (the master of Hell) orders to open the gates to Hell so that all the evil creatures dwelling in Hell could come out for a short period of time and enjoy themselves among living beings, killing them and drinking their lives. Because of that the seventh month is considered to be a very bad and unlucky period for getting married or moving to a new house.

During the 7th month and especially on the 15th day of the month Chinese people burn special ritual paper money and make festive food. The food is served for the dead, and a plate with it is usually put on the table in fron of an empty chair for every deceased relative. You can also see a lot of small boats with lanterns on them on every river in China. The lantern is put to show direction to the deceased, ghosts and spirits so that they didn't get lost.

The next time I'm going to tell you about some other traditional Chinese holidays.

How to say "Thanks" in Chinese

There are a lot of ways to say "Thank you" in Chinese, but all in all they usually can be expressed by a single word “谢谢” meaning "Thank you". Here are some examples:
谢谢 － Thanks
谢谢您 - Thank you (addressing to an older person, showing respect)
多谢 - Thank you very much
谢谢大家 - Thank you (addressing to several people)
太谢谢您了 - Thanks a lot

When you ask a person for a favour or to help you with something, you can use the following expressions:
辛苦了 (xīnkǔle) - means "I've bothered you so much"
打扰了 (dǎrǎole) - "Sorry for bothering"
让您费心了 (ràng nín fèixīnle) - "May I trouble you?"
给您添麻烦了 (gěi nín tiān máfanle) - "I gave you not a little trouble"

让您受累了 (ràng nín shòulěile) - "Sorry for having put you into trouble"
劳驾了 (láojiàle) - "Excuse me, may I trouble you?"

When other people say "Thank you" to you, there are also several ways to react to their words “不用谢”， “不谢”， “不客气”，“没什么”，“没事儿”，“没关系”，“不辛苦”. All of these words mean "There is no need to say thank you". Here are some examples of commonly used phrases:
你太客气了 - You are too polite.
哪里，很愿意为您效劳 - Don't thank me, I did it with pleasure.
一点小事，用不着谢 - It's not a big trouble, you don't need to thank me.
谢什么呀，大家都是朋友 - Don't thank me, we'are friends (meaning "friends must help each other")
这是我应该做的 - This is what I must do, so don;t thank me.

Greetings in Chinese

Today I'm going to tell you about the way people say "Hello" in China. We all know that the most popular way is the phrase "你好“. It's neutral and can be said in different situations. However there is a believe that “你好” is not of Chinese origin and is correlated with the English "Hello" or "How are you". 
Besides ”你好“ there are some other ways to greet each other depending on the situation. Let's learn how we can do it.

1) If we talk to an older person or to our boss, instead of “你” we should say “您“.  And if we greet several people, we say “你们好”.
2) Depending on the time of the day we can also say “你早” or “早上好” (usually addressing to a person whom we know quite well).
3）If Chinese people (friends) are talking not to a foreigner but to a person whom they know very well or who is their friend and if they met just at the time for having breakfast (dinner, supper), they usually say something like ”吃了吗？“，“吃饭了吗？” which can be translated as "Did you have a meal?" It doesn't mean that they really want to know if you have already had dinner. The usual answers for the phrases can be: “刚吃完”，“还没有“, meaning "I have just had dinner" or "Not yet". 
4) In the evening you can often hear such phrases as “还没睡？” meaning "Not sleeping yet?"
5) Sometimes the greeting can sound like that of “去哪儿？” meaning "Where are you going?" The answer is normally as follows “有事”，“出去” ("I've some business" or "Just getting fresh air").

To sum up, if you don't know all these phrases, it's normal just to say “你好".