Quick facts about Lunar New Year
Lunar New Year is widely celebrated across Asia. We have provided some quick facts about the festivals and some of their differences across the countries.
1. First off, the festival goes by many different names: Spring Festival / ChunJie (China), Tet (Vietnam), Seollal (Korea), Losar (Tibet) and more. In Britain it is commonly referred to as Chinese New Year, but at besea.n we prefer to call it Lunar New Year. We did a whole social post on why – check it out here!
2. The festival is based on the cycles of the moon (hence the name!) so the date changes every year. It starts on the first new moon of the lunar calendar and lasts for varying amounts of time - three days in Korea and Vietnam and 15 days in China and Tibet.
3. Like most Lunar festivals, food is an important part of the celebrations! Different countries have different traditional foods that are consumed for Lunar New Year including banh chung (a square cake made of sticky rice stuffed with meat and beans) in Vietnam, tteokguk (rice cake soup) in Korea, nian gao (cake made from glutinous rice flour) in China, tikoy (rice cake) in the Philippines and more.
Firecrackers
Photo by Rajesh Ram on Unsplash
4. Firecrackers, drums and fireworks are common during Lunar New Year. Chinese legend has it they scare off the half-dragon, half-lion monster that lurks around this time - the nian!
5. As probably the most important holiday in the lunisolar calendar, it calls for special outfits! Across Asia families don traditional outfits to celebrate the occasion. This includes a cheongsam or qipao in China, ao dai in Vietnam and hanbok in Korea. These outfits have deep cultural meaning. If you want to find out more about the ao dai, have a read of our co-founder, Mai-Anh’s Instagram post.
Traditional Korean hanbok
Photo by Kseniya Petukhova on Unsplash
6. As the celebration spans many days there is lots of time for activity (often on specific days). The main activities centre around visiting family, eating specific foods, giving ‘lucky money’ and ancestor worship. In Tibet, for example, the ‘first meal of the day’ should go to the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and deities. Before eating breakfast, typically you should make your offerings on your home shrine. Ancestors first! Tibetans also hang new Wind Horse flags, which use the wind to carry good wishes to all the corners of the earth. Some traditional Korean activities including kite flying and ‘neol ddwigi’, or seesaw jumping!
7. You may have heard of the new year festivities being associated with animals. The animals differ slightly between countries (in Chinese Zodiac 2021 is the Year of the Ox, however, in Vietnam it’s the Year of the Buffalo). The animals and their order are based on varying legends and stories from years and years ago about when animals arrived at their destination and how. Lunar New Year marks the start of the new zodiac.
8. There are various superstitions believed by many people across Asia who celebrate Lunar New Year. For example, that you shouldn’t sweep your house or take trash out on the first day of the year or for the first few days after, in case you get rid of the good luck you’ve accumulated. This means that a lot of people’s houses are at their most clean the day before Lunar New Year! Many people also practise ‘first footing’ (also a tradition in Scotland!) as it’s believed that the first person who enters your house on the first day of the new year will affect your family’s fortunes for the rest of the year. So make sure you’re invited…! You should avoid wearing funeral colours like black or white (red is preferable!). Vietnamese people also believe you should pay off all your debts before the new year starts. Traditionally, Koreans believe it is unlucky to give away or take grains out of the house, as a sign of lost wealth and poor harvest.
If you are celebrating Lunar New Year this year, let us know on Instagram or Twitter. At besea.n, we are hosting and attending a range of LNY events, which you can find out more about on our socials.
As always - stay safe, have fun and support ESEA businesses where possible!