Lunar New Year is celebrated throughout the world but especially in East Asia. It spans over about two weeks until a full moon. The calendar follows a 12-year cycle, coinciding with 12 different animals that are assigned each year. These animals include a rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. This year is the Year of the Tiger.
“For Lunar New Year, my family always has hotpot to celebrate, and it is a day where friends and family come together to celebrate and at night we get red envelopes for good luck. My favorite part is getting the red envelopes,” Alexandra Huynh (‘24) said.
This year, Lunar New Year started on January 31 and ended on February 15. The main traditions and activities for the holiday are decorating the door with red to bring good luck, giving offerings to ancestors, enjoying a dinner with family, exchanging gifts or red envelopes, and setting off fireworks.
Setting off fireworks came from the legend about the beast Nian (‘年’ which means ‘year’ in Mandarin). Nian was a beast that tormented the locals by destroying their fields, eating their crops and livestock, and sometimes killing people. But the villagers found that Nian feared loud noises, bright lights, and the color red. So, to scare off Nian, the villagers created a lion out of bamboo. They played drums, cymbals, and gongs, along with shooting off firecrackers. This is why the color red, firecrackers, lanterns, and lion dances are prominent in Lunar New Year celebrations.
The lantern festival is an important part of the Lunar New Year as well. It matches with the first full moon of the year and marks the end of the Lunar New Year. This year, Barstow’s Chinese teacher Mr. Payne has students create lanterns with idioms relating to the Year of the Tiger or generic phrases.
Lunar New Year also consists of many traditions designed to bring good fortune, including certain foods one should eat. Fish, dumplings, spring rolls, tangyuan (sweet rice balls), fruit, Nian Gao (rice cake), and longevity noodles are the most common foods and all bring some sort of positive attribute. Fish is said to bring in prosperity, dumplings and spring rolls bring in wealth, rice balls are associated with family togetherness, fruits such as oranges symbolize fullness and wealth, rice cake implies improvements specifically in work and school, and longevity noodles symbolize a long life.
Along with foods, some superstitions follow traditions. People cannot cut or wash their hair on the first day of New Year since it shows someone ‘washing’ away from their luck. Cleaning on the first day is also prohibited because they cleaned the previous day to get rid of bad luck and do not want to wipe the good luck away. People should also avoid buying books during the 15 days because the word for ‘book’ (书 shū) sounds like ‘lose’.
Lunar New Year is an important holiday to bring in good luck for the new year and spend time with family and friends.
