The above passage speaks about The Origin of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
The story behind the Chinese New Year is a 20th century Legen or Chinese Mythology which states that a beast used to live under the sea or in the mountains.
The beast was said to eat human flesh on Chinese new years day. It was then discovered the same beast was scared of loud noise, fire, red color.
Hence, people began to light fires, paste red colorations on their doors, and light firecrackers all night to scare the beast away. Nian presently is used to refer to "year" or "new year".
See the link below for more about Chinese New Year:
https://brainly.com/question/576417