This coming weekend will see many celebrate “Chinese New Year” on Sunday 22 January 2023. What many people know as “Chinese New Year” is celebrated by those in Mainland China, but it is not an exclusive Chinese festival. Many East Asian cultures celebrate the New Year falling on the same day as “Chinese New Year” – for example the Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Koreans. Mongolians and Tibetans also celebrate a festival based on the progress of the moon through the cosmos, with the Mongolian New Year (Tsagaan Sar) and the Tibetan New Year (Losar) falling on or around the same day as “Chinese New Year”. This year, Tsagaan Sar and Losar will fall on 21 January 2023 whilst “Chinese New Year” is on the day after that. In 2024, “Chinese New Year”, Tsagaan Sar and Losar will all fall on 10 February 2024.
With so many different cultures celebrating the New Year on the same day as “Chinese New Year”, what is the best way to refer to this festival? Tian Tian Market, a supermarket chain in London, United Kingdom, which, according to their own website, “offers customers over 10,000 select food, drinks and lifestyle products from over 25 Asian countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and many more”. Tian Tian Market posted on Instagram details of a discount for the “Lunar New Year”, with one Instagram user commenting, “It is Chinese New Year…. Please respect the culture 🙂 lunar new year is Islamic and it is in July :)”, and another questioning the use of the term “Lunar New Year”.
As a fact check, the Islamic New Year referred to by one of the comments is known as the Hijri New Year, and as it is based on the moon, it never falls on the same Gregorian date, and is not always in July as claimed – in 2020 and 2021, Hijri New Year took place in August. Other cultures have calendars based on the moon too, for example the Hebrew calendar. Would using “Lunar New Year” for “Chinese New Year” be disrespectful to those cultures too since there is not only one “Lunar New Year” across different cultures?
One way around this would be to refer to each culture’s own new year by their respective names, for example referring to the Islamic New Year as the Hijri New year – just like you would refer to specific festivals of different cultures like Eid, Diwali, or Hanukkah. Although this does make it slightly difficult to put a name to joint celebration events of a “Lunar New Year” around this time since so many East Asian cultures celebrate it, which makes “Lunar New Year” a handy catch-all term for this time of year. The term “Lunar New Year” is more generic, and is not “owned” by any one culture. The Wikipedia article on “Lunar New Year” refers to the East Asian Lunar New Year for this period of time, as well as the Islamic and Hebrew calendars.
Of course, there are always going to be some who insist on calling this period “Chinese New Year” – case in point the comments on Tian Tian Market’s post on Instagram. Whether they are genuine users, bots, state sponsored commenters, it would be difficult to find out. As a Han ethnic, I do not mind if someone simply says to me “Happy New Year”. We do not go around saying “Happy Gregorian New Year” for 1 January, so why not simply leave it as “Happy New Year”?
You may have noticed that within the list of cultures I listed in the beginning of this piece as celebrating a New Year on or around the same day as “Chinese New Year”, I also mentioned the Mongolian and Tibetan festivals of Tsagaan Sar and Losar. I would find it very awkward to say to a Mongolian or a Tibetan “Happy Chinese New Year” in light of the issues which these cultures have with the actions of Mainland China’s ruling Communist Party in Inner Mongolia and Tibet.
A quick search on Google for “What should I call Chinese New Year?” brings up as the second hit an article on the website of China Highlights, a Chinese tour company based in Guilin, Guangxi province, China. Even this Chinese company recognises that using the term “Chinese New Year” for this period “can cause misunderstanding or controversy”. What does this Chinese company suggest?
- When speaking about Chinese New Year to Chinese people or someone from a culture that doesn’t traditionally celebrate a different lunar New Year, it is safe to say “Chinese New Year” or “Lunar New Year” or “Spring Festival”.
- When speaking to a person with other Asian heritage about their New Year, it is best to say “Lunar New Year” or use culture-specific or local terms. For example, with Vietnamese people, use “Vietnamese New Year”, or even better, say “Tết” to show respect and knowledge.
The common term featured in both bullet points: “Lunar New Year”. So whatever your culture, if you are celebrating the New Year this weekend, I wish you all a Happy (Lunar) New Year, and may you all have a prosperous and good year ahead.
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