Lunar New Year is the celebration of the new year that begins in the lunar calendar, and with it comes the spring season. Typically celebrated in late January or early February, this celebration is very important in East and Southeast Asia. 

With the Lunar New Year as a new addition to the school holiday calendar, I thought I’d take a look at what it is and its significance by asking pertinent friends about what they do on this special holiday.

The most resounding answer I got back from friends was that people get together with family to celebrate and eat a lot of different foods. For my Northern Chinese friends, the most common answer to “What do you eat?” was definitely dumplings. One of my friends described how her grandmother would prepare the filling and dough herself before bringing it to my friend’s house. There, her family would form an assembly line, poking a hole in the dough, making a stretched-out donut, cutting it into sections, rolling it out, putting the filling in, folding it into intricate ways, and either boiling or frying it. There is a common belief that the more dumplings one eats during the Lunar New Year celebrations, the more money and good luck one will have in the new year. Other important foods include nian gao, a chewy rice cake with a mellow sweetness that often has dates in it, and tang yuan — directly translated to soup balls — chewy on the outside, either savory (for a meal) or sweet (for dessert), and boiled until they rise to the top of the cooking pot.

For many places, such as China, Korea, and Vietnam, the Lunar New Year is like Christmas. Time off is given for people to be with their families and celebrate the festivities and decorations are put up everywhere. Typically, these include decorations for the new year’s Chinese zodiac animal as well as many red ornaments. 

The common story behind the red decorations revolves around the story of the monster Nian, meaning “year” in English. A village was terrorized by the monster every year during the beginning of spring, so the townspeople decided to paint the houses red with red drapings everywhere as well as lighting bamboo on fire. This action scared the monster, which is the reason many people think the color red is very auspicious and the reason why firecrackers are lit all throughout the festivities.

Sometimes, Mandarin speakers put an upside-down fu character on their door because the phrase “good luck arrives” sounds very nearly identical to “upside-down fu.” In many places, red envelopes are given, known as hong bao in Chinese or Lì xì in Vietnamese. They have money inside, and the amount increases when people are closer to the recipients. For example, a parent will give more money to their kid than the kid’s great-uncles or aunts.

All in all, this celebration is important to many people around the world and at Lexington High School. Even though each place has its unique celebrations, each is significant in its own way. I was personally overjoyed to learn about this holiday because it expanded my understanding of other cultures, food, and common customs. Now that I know the significance of the holiday, I’m delighted that we get the day off to allow people to celebrate. Happy Lunar New Year to all who celebrate and wishing everyone an auspicious Year of the Snake!