What do you think? "Chinese New Year" is fine but considering not all ethnicities in China celebrate it and countries outside China have celebrated it for centuries, it seems like there could be a better term for it. "Lunar New Year" doesn't seem like a particularly accurate term either. I find both "Chinese New Year" and "Lunar New Year" problematic. It both stems from English being super fucking limited because the fact that the majority speaker of English is well, people with no stakes in creating the kind of differentiation/nuance afforded in the native language. The Lunar New Year celebrations of the East Asian cultural sphere occur on the same date across the region, on the new moon, which occurs in late January or early February, and are based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Simply put, Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year are not the same. Despite being related, there are a few noteworthy differences between the two. Read on to find out what they are. 1. "Chinese New Year" is specific while "Lunar New Year" is more general. In their post “Chinese New Year, not Lunar New Year”, they wrote: “I encourage everyone to not replace the name CNY with ‘Lunar New Year’.” They then provided three reasons as to why CNY is the correct term. The first: CNY is not New Year’s Day in the Lunar Calendar. A number of organizations, including the Associated Press Stylebook used by many newsrooms, recommend using Lunar New Year instead of Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year marks the beginning of the new lunar year on the first day of the Chinese lunar calendar, while Lunar New Year encompasses various cultural celebrations that may occur around similar dates but differ in traditions and customs. Every year, the Lunar New Year marks the transition from one animal to another. The Year of the Dragon, which began on Feb. 10, 2024, ended Tuesday to begin the Year of the Snake. Differences Between Lunar New Year and Chinese New Year. Among all lunar-based calendars, the new year generally falls on the first day of the first lunar month. The Chinese calendar is also lunar-based (at least in part for the reckoning), which means the Chinese New Year is a Lunar New Year. 27th January 2025 – (Hong Kong) The recent controversy over whether to call the upcoming spring festival “Chinese New Year” or “Lunar New Year” reflects a deeper understanding of contextual communication that the rest of the world might do well to observe. NewJeans Danielle apologises as she refers Lunar New Year as Chinese New Year r/kpop K-Pop (Korean popular music) is a musical genre consisting of pop, dance, electropop, hiphop, rock, R&B, and electronic music originating in South Korea. Happy tet. Happy Chunjie. Happy seollal etc. If u and the recipient are of different culture, its best to say both. Happy korean new year and chinese new year! “Happy lunar new year” should be ok too, but now its associated with intention of not wanting to say “happy chinese new year” so some chinese people might not like hearing it. Yeah grew up knowing it's Chinese New year and everywhere the short form is CNY. Also well known in Singapore each ethnicity gets 2 days of public holidays. Services are available for tourists of course, especially in big metropolis like Ho Chi Minh city, but could be suboptimal and patchy. If you like the whole special feelings leading up to Lunar New Year, stay there up until a few days before the New Year, but leave right before the first day of Tet (how they call New Year in Vietnam). Most did not seem to like Chinese New Year and chose Lunar New Year because it was more inclusive and the word "Chinese New Year" had a connotation that the holiday belonged to the Chinese, while it's not exclusively Chinese at all, and of course that they didn't like China. The others weren't bothered by either. In Chinese lunar new year dinner, the symbolism is more important than anything else. For example, you must have a fish dish because fish is a homophone of abundance, how you cook the dish doesn’t matter. When people talk about "Lunar New Year" celebrations, they're only talking about one of those calendars though. They're not saying it to be inclusive of Jewish new year celebrations (which take place around September, not January) or the Islamic new year (which this year is in July but moves around because the Islamic calendar doesn't adjust to stay in sync with the solar year). My family told me your attitude and mindset during lunar new year sets the tone for the rest of the year. So I’m gonna show up to work and go to lecture after. I want to set a productive tone for the rest of the year. 26 votes, 38 comments. true. That’s a very narrow viewpoint. It was simply New Year for all other cultures that follow and celebrate the lunar new year before it was labeled by the western world. To think that it should be called Chinese new year is a bit strange simply because.. the Americans and trade posts only knew I’m Filipino, and my cousin is half Chinese. I don’t know the superstitions off the top of my head. I’m washing my car and my cousin tells me I can’t wash my car on Lunar New Year. We used to celebrate (kind of) in respects to his half of the culture when we were kids. Now that we’re older, not anymore.
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