What to know about the Chinese New Year celebration
Corresponding with the first new moon of 2020, Chinese New Year – also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival – occurred on Saturday. The weeks-long celebration ushers in the year of the rat, the first animal of the Chinese Zodiac and the start of a new 12-year cycle.
The occasion is meant to be spent with family and friends and inspires observers to start anew. In preparation, symbolic foods are made, houses are cleaned and attention is paid to appearances. Though many around the world celebrate the holiday, people are still curious about the occasion. Below are answers to questions one may have.
What does Chinese New Year signify?
The new year is a chance to start fresh, see loved ones and share in the hope of good things to come.
Vickie Lee, author of the children’s book “Ruby’s Chinese New Year,” describes Chinese New Year as “the most important and the most popular holiday for Chinese people and in the Chinese culture.”
“It’s a very joyful holiday (when) you’re supposed to go home, see your family,” she adds of the time spanning about 15 days. “In China, they celebrate it for two full weeks, and people actually travel home and from far, far away.”
Zhaojin Zeng, a professor of East Asian history at the University of Pittsburgh, compares the occasion to Thanksgiving in America, emphasizing the importance of time spent with family.
When is Chinese New Year?
As the holiday is tied to the year’s first new moon, the timing will vary. It can fall in January or early February, Lee explains. This year, it was Saturday, Jan. 25.
How is Chinese New Year celebrated?
In addition to cleaning one’s home, and adorning it with red banners, artwork and flowers, a priority in preparing for the holiday is making meals, says Lee. She says the big feast takes place on Friday, New Year’s Eve.
“This holiday, like so many holidays in other cultures, is centered around food. So there’s several days of preparation where you’re making... symbolic dishes like a whole fish,” she says. “A whole fish symbolizes prosperity.”
She also says dumplings (symbolizing wealth) will be present along with noodles (representing longevity).
2020 is the year of the rat. What does the rat represent?
Lee describes the rat as being “very clever and innovative. They love to be very active... They are very hard working. They love to collect things and organize things.”
What do you wear on Chinese New Year?
Zeng and Lee endorse red and bright colors.
Lee says greetings given are “very indicative of, ‘I hope you have a very financially prosperous year,’” which goes along with what the color red represents. “(Chinese New Year is) all about sort of (being) very happy, very prosperous, and the red is also very in keeping with that,” she says. “Red is a very fortuitous color, lucky color.”
Can people wash their hair on Chinese New Year?
This is a question that some have searched on Google, which Lee says is “one of the superstitions” tied to the holiday.
In preparation, “you clean your house, you clean yourself, make yourself look nice, obviously bathe and the whole nine,” says Lee. “And then the day after or the Chinese New Year Day, you’re really supposed to just not do any of that because...we don’t want to sort of wash away the luck that you’re gonna have for the rest of the year.”
What else should you avoid doing on Chinese New Year?
Zeng warns to be mindful of what you say. “People should avoid using words that may carry some bad, negative image,” he says. “What you should do, or should say, on Chinese New Year (is use) good words. Words, for instance, that could bring good fortune to your new year.”