Happy Lunar New Year

February 8th this year is Lunar New Year. For Chinese, in China and in ethnic communities around the world, the lunar new year is the most important and most festive holiday of the year. Through centuries of China’s agrarian tradition, this was the one period when farmers could rest from their work in the fields. Family members from near and far would travel to be with loved ones in time to usher out the old year and welcome in the new, with great celebratory flourish. With a calendar dating from the third millennium BCE, the Chinese people have for thousands of years been building on ancient customs of New Year celebrations. Although they may vary from region to region, village to village, and even family to family according to social position, many of these customs are still observed. Today, all over China, during what is now commonly referred to as the Spring Festival, passenger trains, buses, and river boats are packed with holiday travelers; shops do a flurry of business selling gifts, new clothes, and festive foods; kitchens are bustling with preparations for elaborate feasts; and streets are filled with the sounds of firecrackers and seasonal greetings.

Do you how the Lunar new year was born? The marking of the passage of time in China has for millennia been closely linked to the cyclical pattern of agricultural production. The vast majority of the population of this agrarian society has always resided in rural areas and supported itself directly or indirectly by the tilling of the soil. One’s activities were arranged around events necessary to sustain life: plowing the fields, sowing seed, nurturing the crops, and gathering the harvest. As such it was necessary to be able to keep track of the optimal times for performing certain tasks. If a peasant waited too long to plant a crop, he might miss advantageous spring rains; if he hesitated to reap his more delicate vegetables, he might lose them to the first frost.
It was from this necessity that the Chinese lunar calendar was born and it is this calendar which fixes the dates of the lunar new year and other events related to the holiday season.
I’m not Chinese, so I didn’t celebrate the Lunar New Year either, but the festivities they brought along were contagious. Happy Lunar New Year!​