Chinese New Year is celebrated annually at the beginning of the lunisolar Chinese calendar. The New Year is a huge event in China, and festivals occur for fifteen straight days beginning the evening before the turn of the month. The first day o
f the New Year is decided by the new moon between January 21st and February 20th, meaning that this year’s Chinese New Year began on Monday, February 8th. It is typical for many traditional Chinese dishes such as porridge to be served during festival meals in the days following the turn of the New Year.
The New Year is a several hundred year old tradition, beginning as a festival to honor deities and ancestors. Despite the name, the Chinese New Year is also celebrated in several neighboring countries such as Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia among others. In the evening prior to the New Year, Chinese families will traditionally clean their house in order to rid away with any misfortune or pain lingering from the previous year.
Link to the earlier post on the New Year.
One followup: across societies aren’t shifting holidays the norm, not the exception? Lunar calendars are “natural” – for “us” in the US both Passover and Easter float, as does Ramadan for Muslims.
It’s not surprising that countries surrounding China also celebrate the Chinese New Year. With almost 1.4 billion people in China (almost 19% of the global population), their holidays and celebrations are likely to spill over. This is not to mention the number of Chinese immigrants across the world that continue to observe the Chinese New Year. When put into this perspective, it makes sense that economies are visibly affected leading up to (when factories are filling orders to prepare for temporary shutdown) and during (when factories are closed and laborers have time off work/time to transition into new jobs) celebration periods.
I think part of the reason why countries around China are celebrating it is because of another name of it: Lunar New Year. Lots of Asian countries adopt the lunar calendar or they used to as part of their unique culture. So when they are celebrating New Year, they are actually not thinking much of China, considering the political and social tensions between China and other nearby Asian countries.
Chinese New Year must be the biggest mass migration of people in the world. The number of passenger trips during the New Year in 2016 totaled around 2.9 billion. This time is about the gathering of families and ushering in a year of good fortune. The rail companies in China must make a killing during this time of the year.