A Beginner’s Guide to Lunar New Year
Most of us are accustomed to counting days based on the Gregorian calendar—a system of marking time and counting days based on the passage of the sun. While the Gregorian calendar is the most commonly used civil calendar across countries in the present day, other calendars still exist and serve as the basis for many holidays and traditional celebrations.
The Chinese New Year celebration in Barcelona, celebrated this year on February 3rd, is not only a harmonious blend of Catalan and Chinese traditions, but also a conveniently condensed representation of what might occur in China over 15 days into one single afternoon near Arc de Triomf.
What Is It?
Simply put, Lunar New Year celebrates the turn of a year based on the phases of the moon. Many cultures and countries celebrate Lunar New Year, or other events based on the lunar calendar. Japan once celebrated the New Year at the same time as the Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese did, but Japan now observes a different calendar. The Indian festival of lights, Diwali, is another example of a “turn of the year” celebration that does not follow the Gregorian calendar.
When Is It?
The lunar calendar doesn’t match up perfectly with the Gregorian calendar, and as such, Lunar New Year falls on different dates each year, usually between mid-January to early March. In 2024, it falls on February 10. Easter, for example, is also based on the lunar calendar, and therefore can fall anytime between March and April. See here for the Gregorian-lunar calendar conversion through the year 2100.
Where Do the Animals Come into Play?
The Chinese mark each new Lunar New Year with animal zodiacs in the following order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog, pig. Ancient Chinese mythology has it that the Emperor of the Heavens once held a contest to select 12 personal guards and allowed the first twelve winners of all the animals to become representatives of the years.
In truth, the animals don’t have any significance, except to serve as a clever way to gauge age subtly but accurately. By knowing someone’s animal, you can immediately ballpark how old they are. For example, if you meet someone who was born in the Year of the Dragon, you’ll know they’re either a newborn, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 or 72. If you meet someone who’s a Horse (whose next year falls in 2026), their age will be 10, 22, 34, 46 and so on.
Generally speaking, children born early to mid-January will be whatever animal of the previous year, so children born this year before February 10 are Rabbits. Any child born between February 10, 2024 and January 28, 2025 will be considered a Dragon, and newborns breathing their first starting from January 29, 2025 will be Snakes.
Whatever personality characteristics we derive from the animals are used only in jest (e.g. Rabbits are meek, Oxen are strong and Monkeys are smart).
Romantic pairing advice based on zodiac animals is limited. One thread of suggestion advises against half-cycle (six-year) animals to be together. For example, Snakes and Pigs are supposed to make poor couples. However, this is certainly not deterministic advice and its validity, like with all things, is up to each of us to decide for ourselves.
Chinese New Year Customs and Celebrations
There’s no one way to celebrate Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is a family affair and, as such, each family has its own traditions. It is, however, considered the most important annual occasion for families to come together.
Since eight is a lucky number because it sounds like the word for “to get rich” in Chinese, here are eight fairly standard elements of any Chinese New Year celebration:
1. Lucky Money Envelopes
Chinese New Year is a great time for kids to get money. Those who are married give the unmarried (mostly children) money in red envelopes in exchange for verbal blessings. The tradition is that children will bless their elders and hope that they will be given red packets in return. Children are supposed to keep their red packets under their pillow for the first fifteen days of the New Year (as the full duration of fifteen days is considered the “Chinese New Year festival”) and sleep upon them for longevity.
2. Red Decor
Money envelopes, lanterns, plastic firecrackers, door stickers with written blessings... everything red symbolizes good fortune and happiness. Four-character sayings wishing people good fortune, health and safety are traditionally written on red rectangular strips of paper and pasted on door frames. A red diamond shape with the character for fortune (“fu”) is stuck in the center of the top part of any main door as an invitation for fortune to descend upon the family.
3. Firecrackers
At the crack of midnight, folks like to set off firecrackers shaped like bunches of bamboo (similar to a string of long grapes), to celebrate the arrival of the New Year with the loud crackling noise produced. Nowadays, traditional fireworks that explode high in the air are also popular for the visual effects. Both red door stickers and firecrackers hail from the myth about a monster named “Nian” who would descend upon the village once a year and gobble up whatever it saw, including humans. It would then return to the mountains to hibernate for a year and descend upon the village again, like clockwork. One year, a mysterious old beggar showed up on the day that the monster was set to wake. He instructed his generous host to stick red strips of paper on the door-frames and set fire to dried bamboo in the backyard. When the monster came, he was so frightened by the crackling sound of burning bamboo and so dizzied by the red paper and lit candles that he fled to the mountains and never returned again.
4. Lion Dance and/or Dragon Dance
Although lion dance and dragon dance involve similar but fundamentally different skills and choreography, both are popular for public performances during Chinese New Year. Lions are not indigenous to China, but the Chinese people look upon them as fierce, strong and majestic, which is why they appear on many houses, steps and stamps. Dragons, on the other hand, are revered magical creatures that can affect the weather (rain is important to agricultural communities), bring good fortune and repeal disasters.
5. Round Food Items
Chinese is a language full of similar-sounding words, and many round food items are particularly popular during Chinese New Year because the names of these particular round dumplings and buns sound much like terms for “togetherness” and “completeness. They are consumed in the hope that families will always able to get together and that life will be full and complete. Fish is also popular because the word for fish sounds similar to the word for “leftover” or “spare,” and hence has become a symbol for having spare savings year to year.
6.Out with the Old and in with the New
Chinese New Year is also called Spring Festival, marking the beginning of spring based on the lunar calendar. A thorough spring cleaning typically happens before New Year’s Eve to get rid of all the dust and “bad luck” that accumulates over the course of a year and prepare the household for another clean, prosperous start. People also tend to buy and wear new (mostly red) clothes for the New Year.
7. CCTV’s Annual Spring Festival Gala
Starting from 1983, the Central China Television station has hosted an elaborate, two-hour variety show-plus-countdown that has become a staple among Chinese families all across the world as post-dinner entertainment. The show is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world’s most watched television program, drawing more than one billion viewers to the broadcast. It is considered a prime platform to launch your career in entertainment in China and many celebrities have become household names solely because of their debut on this program.
8. Gambling
Since the New Year is supposed to bring good luck, many are eager to test out their good fortune by starting off with some small gambling games. There are various varieties such as mahjong, “Fish, Prawn, Crab” or “Big Two,” a card game that families may play among themselves while waiting for the strike of midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Published January 14, 2019, updated January 30, 2024.