Lunar New Year Jeopardy

The zodiac animals, red envelopes, dumplings and noodles, the Nian legend, and New Year in Korea and Vietnam, for a winter class. Free to copy, phone buzzers.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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The Zodiac Animals

$200
The Chinese zodiac has this many animals.
What is 12?
$400
In the legend of the Great Race, this animal finished first by riding across the river on the Ox's back.
What is the Rat?
$600
Lunar New Year on February 17, 2026, began the Year of this animal.
What is the Horse?
$800
This is the only mythical creature among the twelve zodiac animals.
What is the Dragon?
$1,000
Each zodiac year is also paired with one of these five, such as wood, fire or metal, making a 60-year cycle.
What are the elements?

Customs

$200
Children often receive this, tucked into red envelopes called hongbao.
What is money?
$400
Firecrackers and this performance, with dancers under a costume with a huge head, are said to chase away bad luck.
What is the lion dance?
$600
Families do this chore before the New Year but avoid it on the first day, so as not to lose the good luck.
What is sweeping the house?
$800
The holiday ends on the 15th day with this festival, named for what people hang and carry.
What is the Lantern Festival?
$1,000
The yearly rush home for the holiday, often called the largest annual human migration on Earth, has this Chinese name.
What is Chunyun?

Festival Foods

$200
Called jiaozi in Mandarin, these filled parcels are said to look like old silver ingots.
What are dumplings?
$400
A whole one of these is served because its Chinese name sounds like the word for surplus.
What is a fish?
$600
Long ones of these are eaten without being cut, as a wish for a long life.
What are noodles?
$800
These small citrus fruits are given in pairs because their Cantonese name sounds like the word for gold.
What are mandarin oranges?
$1,000
In Korea, eating a bowl of tteokguk, this kind of soup, on Seollal is said to make you a year older.
What is rice cake soup?

Around Asia

$200
In Vietnam, Lunar New Year is called this.
What is Tết?
$400
Seollal is the Lunar New Year in this country.
What is Korea?
$600
Vietnam's zodiac replaces the Ox with this similar animal.
What is the water buffalo?
$800
Lunar New Year always lands between January 21 and the 20th of this month.
What is February?
$1,000
Mongolia's lunar new year, a time of white foods like dairy, is called this, meaning white moon.
What is Tsagaan Sar?

Legends

$200
According to legend, this monster, whose name means year, came out each New Year to attack villages.
What is the Nian?
$400
The Nian was said to fear loud noises, fire and this color.
What is red?
$600
In most tellings of the Great Race, this animal came in last after stopping to eat and nap.
What is the Pig?
$800
The Great Race legend explains why this animal, left asleep by the Rat, is not in the Chinese zodiac.
What is the Cat?
$1,000
A week before New Year, families send off this household god to report on them to the Jade Emperor.
Who is the Kitchen God?

Greetings and Words

$200
Gong hei fat choy is a New Year greeting in this Chinese language, spoken in Hong Kong and Guangdong.
What is Cantonese?
$400
The Mandarin greeting xin nian kuai le means this.
What is Happy New Year?
$600
The character fu, meaning this, is often hung upside down because upside down sounds like arrived.
What is good fortune?
$800
In China the holiday is officially called this, even though it falls in winter.
What is the Spring Festival?
$1,000
Chunlian are these, written in matching pairs on red paper and hung on either side of a door.
What are couplets?

Final Jeopardy — Full Circle

A baby born in the Year of the Rat in 2020 will next see a Year of the Rat begin in this year.

What is 2032?

How to run this board

Lunar New Year is celebrated by well over a billion people, and it is often the first holiday students learn about that runs on a different calendar from their own. Categories cover the twelve zodiac animals, the customs of the holiday, the foods and the wishes behind them, how the New Year is kept in Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia as well as China, the legends of the Nian and the Great Race, and the greetings to use.

The Around Asia column is there on purpose: Seollal and Tet are the same season but not the same holiday, and it is worth a minute on why the name Lunar New Year is broader than Chinese New Year. The Final is a counting question about the zodiac cycle, so let teams work it out on paper before they wager.

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