Chinese New Year is the most important holiday not only in China, but in many other parts of the world. It is one of the world’s most colourful and exuberant events and triggers celebrations across the globe. It is the occasion when families meet up, have traditional food and colourful cultural festivals are held for the general public.
The celebrations of Chinese New Year is not a common way of celebrating the beginning of the year as usually we all plan on the midnight between December 31 and January 1. Chinese New Year varies every year and the festivities go on for almost a month including a fortnight for preparations. Chinese New Year begins on a different date each year, because it is based on the lunar calendar. New Year’s Day normally falls between January 21 and February 20.
With the popular adoption of the Western calendar in 1912, the Chinese joined in celebrating January 1 as New Year’s Day. China, however, continues to celebrate Chinese New Year with the traditional greeting.
The 2018 Chinese New Year begins on Friday, February 16, and marks the beginning of the Year of the Dog. The celebrations are tipped to last for over two weeks. Tied to the Chinese lunar calendar, the holiday will traditionally be a time to honour household and heavenly deities as well as ancestors. It was also a time to bring family together for feasting.
This year, the Chinese New Year global celebrations include an explosion of light and sound, involving bell ringing, lighting firecrackers and watching traditional lion dances. London’s Chinese New Year event attracts around 700,000 people — making it the biggest event outside Asia
With the emergence of China’s global importance, people world over are interested in knowing about the country’s cultural face after witnessing its impressive growth economic activities and interventions worldwide. The mainstreaming of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has also added more importance for a common Pakistani to know the cultural traits of the Chinese. The Chinese New Year celebrations are the best time to know it well.
The common tradition is the Chinese families get together for a reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve, and it is believed that by cleaning their houses on New Year’s day, they will be able to sweep away bad fortune. Traditionally, kids were given red envelopes stuffed with ‘lucky money’ and positive wishes on New Year’s day. Some teens now have red envelope apps, so their relatives can transfer cash digitally.
The Chinese calendar also included the Chinese zodiac, the cycle of twelve stations or ‘signs’ along the apparent path of the sun through the cosmos. Each New Year was marked by the characteristics of one of the 12 zodiac animals: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
2018 will be the Year of the Dog, and those born in 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, and 2018 are also known as Dogs. According to the Asian astrology, your year of birth and the animal that represents is believed to determine a lot about your personality traits.
Although each of the twelve animals gets an outing every dozen years, there are different varieties – and 2018 will be the first year of the Earth Dog since 1958. Anyone born in an Earth Dog year will be communicative, serious, and responsible in the workplace.
Ranking as the eleventh animal in Chinese zodiac, Dog is the symbol of loyalty and honesty. People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They are honest, friendly, faithful, loyal, smart, straightforward and venerable, and have a strong sense of responsibility.
CHINESE NEW YEAR TRADITIONS
The traditional Chinese New Year was the most important festival on the calendar. The entire attention of the household was fixed on the celebration. During this time, business life came nearly to a halt. Home and family were the principle focuses.
In preparation for the holiday, houses were thoroughly cleaned to rid them of huiqi (inauspicious breaths), which might have collected during the previous year. Cleaning was also meant to appease the gods who would be coming down from heaven to inspect activities of people on earth.
Ritual sacrifices of food and paper icons were offered to gods and ancestors. People posted scrolls – printed with lucky messages on household gates – and set off firecrackers to frighten evil spirits. Elders gave out money to children.
In fact, many of the rites carried out during this period were meant to bring good luck to the household and long life to the family — particularly to the parents.
CHINESE NEW YEAR FOOD
Most important was the feasting. On New Year’s Eve, the extended family would join around the table for a meal that included as the last course a fish that was symbolic of abundance and therefore not meant to be eaten.
In the first five days of the New Year, people ate long noodles to symbolise long life. On the 15th and final day of the New Year, round dumplings shaped like the full moon were shared as a sign of the family unit and of perfection.
SPRING FESTIVAL
The Western-style Gregorian calendar arrived in China along with Jesuit missionaries in 1582. It began to be used by the general population by 1912, and New Year’s Day was officially recognised as occurring on January 1.
Beginning in 1949, under the rule of Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong, the government forbade celebration of the traditional Chinese New Year and followed the Gregorian calendar in its dealings with the West.
But at the end of the 20th century, Chinese leaders were more willing to accept the Chinese tradition. In 1996, China instituted a weeklong vacation during the holiday—now called Spring Festival – giving people the opportunity to travel home to celebrate the New Year.
CELEBRATIONS WORLDOVER
San Francisco, California, claims its Chinese New Year parade is the biggest celebration of its kind outside of Asia. The city has hosted a Chinese New Year celebration since the Gold Rush era of the 1860s, a period of large-scale Chinese immigration to the region.
In the early 21st century, many Chinese families spent a significant amount of their discretionary income celebrating the Spring Festival with traditional symbols and food. They also spent time watching the televised Spring Festival Gala: an annual variety show featuring traditional and contemporary singers, dancers and magic demonstrations.
Although the rites of the holiday no longer had religious value, people remained sensitive to the zodiac animals to the extent that they considered what, for example, a Year of the Dog in 2018 might mean for their personal fortunes or for a child born at that time.
This year, the Chinese New Year global celebrations include an explosion of light and sound, involving bell ringing, lighting firecrackers and watching traditional lion dances. London’s Chinese New Year event attracts around 700,000 people – making it the biggest event outside Asia. This year, the Capital’s free-to-attend celebrations take place on Sunday February 18 (the Sunday after Chinese New Year on February 16) between 10am and 6pm.
The writer is an Islamabad-based art and culture, policy advocacy, strategic communication and outreach expert. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com. He tweets @EmmayeSyed
Published in Daily Times, February 17th 2018.