Chinese New Year For Everyone
Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival is not just for the Chinese.
In cities all over the world, people of different faith, colour and belief participate in community-based festivities.
Because The Chinese Calendar predates the Western calendar by thousands and thousands of years, The Year of the Pig is 4705.
This year, the first day of the lunar month falls on February 18th and in villages, towns and cities everywhere, people are preparing to usher in the Year of the Pig, or, alternately, the Year of the Boar.
Welcoming in the New Year, the largest celebration in Chinese culture, is becoming mainstream. In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where I live, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t know that the New Year's Day is today -- February 18th.
The phrase, “Gung Hay Fat Choi,” which roughly translated means “Wishing you a Happy New Year,” is on the lips of adults and children, no matter their ethnicity, or mother tongue. In our local newspapers, Chinese New Year is the lead story on page one. The New Year creates a bridge between two extraordinarily different cultures and is therefore, a bright light in the battle against racism.
The New Year celebrations last for fifteen days, during which there is much feasting and socializing. In schools, children create colourful lanterns in preparation for the Lantern Festival. On New Year’s Day, the little ones receive a small red envelope, with a token amount of money in it. Red, as everyone knows is the colour of luck and this brightly decorated red envelope, is a symbol for luck and prosperity throughout the New Year.
On the eve of the New Year, it seems as if the entire city is preparing celebrate this day that has so meaningful to all of us, regardless of ethnicity or religious beliefs. The annual lion or dragon parade is perhaps the most well-known and loved event. The dragon (that looks a bit like a lion) will dance down the streets of China town – the star of the annual New Year Parade.
I’m sure there is still much that non-Chinese people have to learn about the Spring Festival, but each year, we become a little more knowledgeable. I believe that by making New Years a citywide event, we create a sense of shared community, which in turn leads to an understanding of each other’s culture and traditions – and that is the best way to eradicate racism and prejudice.
Gung Hay Fat Choi. I hope this year will prove to be a good one for everyone on earth.
Here’s a little information on The Year of the Pig:
People born in the following years are all Pigs in the Chinese Zodiac: 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019, 2031
Those born in the year of the Pig are:
- curious
- communicative
- optimistic
- loyal
- trustworthy
- naïve
- possess wonderful social skills
- are great actors, entertainers and writers
The following famous people were all born in the Year of the Pig:
Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Thomas Jefferson, Ernest Hemingway, Alfred Hitchcock, Mahalia Jackson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger
