The beast is said to have terrorised people every year, until he was defeated due to his fear of red, loud noises and fire. Primarily in traditional Chinese culture, the colour red originates from the myth of a monster called Nian. This is why many people clean their homes before the celebrations, as many clean to remove any misfortune or bad luck lingering ahead of the new year. The 15-day festival is about saying goodbye to the past year and, like the season of spring itself, symbolises renewal. This is because it marks the beginning of the spring season and the end of winter in the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. While celebrations and traditions take place annually, the exact date of the Lunar New Year changes every year as it begins with the arrival of a new moon, which signifies the start of a new month.
Since Chinese New Year falls on different days of the week each year, the governments of some of these countries choose to adjust working days to create a longer public holiday. New Year’s celebrations continued under the Yuan dynasty, when people also gave nian gao (年糕, “year cakes”) to relatives. It is believed that placing the couplets on the door to the home in the days preceding the new year was widespread during the Song dynasty. The Chunlian (Spring Couplets) was written by Meng Chang, an emperor of the Later Shu (935–965 AD), during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period：”新年納餘慶，嘉節號長春” (“Enjoying past legacies in the new year, the holiday foreseeing the long-lasting spring”). Eventually, men zhuang became a symbol of good luck, and people started sending them to friends on New Year’s Day, calling them by a new name, bai nian tie. During the Jin dynasty (266–420), people started the Ringospin Casino New Year’s Eve tradition of all-night revelry called shousui (守歲).
Buy yourself a Chinese-style coat, get your kids tiger-head hats and shoes, and decorate your home with some beautiful red Chinese knots, then you will have an authentic Chinese-style Spring Festival. In stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, and other cities, products of traditional Chinese style have started to lead fashion trends. Red couplets and red lanterns are displayed on the door frames and light up the atmosphere. For example, in 2013, New Year’s Eve (9 February) fell on a Saturday and New Year’s Day (10 February) on a Sunday. In 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, official Chinese New Year celebrations were banned in China.
Children born in the last lunar calendar year were Snakes, while those born on or after the Lunar New Year in 2027 will be Goats, and so on. Lunar New Year, widely considered the most important event of the year in China and Chinese communities around the planet, is nearly here. Keep in mind that different regions and minorities may celebrate the days on different dates, or have different names or practices for certain days. Each day of the 16-day-long festival has a name, and usually an assigned purpose or meaning. In the Chinese tradition, a person’s birth year—rather than their birth month—is considered key to understanding character and fortune. Many traditional dishes served during this festival reflect wishes for prosperity, health, and longevity.
Concluding on the Lantern Festival (元宵节)
The remaining 14 days are usually only celebrated by ethnic Chinese families. In Indonesia, the first day of the Chinese New Year is recognized as a national holiday. In Singapore, Chinese New Year is officially a two-day public holiday and is accompanied by various festive activities. George Town, a Chinese-majority city, is known for its lively Chinese New Year celebrations that last until the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day. Chinese New Year’s Eve is typically a half-day holiday in Malaysia, while Chinese New Year is a two-day public holiday.
Thus, it’s called renri/jan jat (the people’s birthday). Every year, certain Chinese zodiac signs clash with the stars negatively, so temple visits are considered a good way to resolve those conflicts and bring peace in the coming months. To kick things off, festive cakes and puddings are made on the 24th day of the last lunar month (February 11 in 2026). Festivities often last for 15 days — sometimes even more — with different tasks and activities taking place over that period. Like many major holidays, Lunar New Year can be a lot of work.
South Asia
For example, Cantonese people eat dishes made of seven types of vegetables. The seventh day of the Lunar New Year (February 23) is when followers believe the Chinese mother goddess, Nuwa, created humanity. As noted earlier, for many people Lunar New Year is a time to consult the stars to find out what lies ahead in the coming months.
- The Chinese New Year of 2026 falls on February 17th (Tuesday), and will last to February 21th.
- (If you haven’t prepared your own “gou” yet, here’s an easy recipe for radish cake, a beloved Lunar New Year dish.)
- The horse, delayed by helping others along the way, finished seventh – reinforcing cultural values of loyalty and benevolence.
- The festival also attracts international media coverage, reaching millions of viewers in Asia.
- Red couplets and red lanterns are displayed on the door frames and light up the atmosphere.
- For those born in a Horse year, 2026 is their Ben Ming Nian—a year traditionally believed to bring bad luck due to a clash with Tai Sui, the God of Age.
One of the key celebrations is the Chinese New Year parade with floats and fireworks taking place along the streets in Chinatown, Manhattan, the largest Chinese New Year parade outside Asia. However, even smaller cities that are historically connected with Chinese immigration, such as Butte, Montana, have recently hosted parades. The common activities are the lion dance, dragon dance, New Year market, and food festival. The festival in Sydney is organized in partnership with a different Chinese province each year. The festival also attracts international media coverage, reaching millions of viewers in Asia.
Chinese New Year Calendar (1930 –
There is a circle of 12 animals, including the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. While the date varies each year in the Gregorian calendar, the Lunar New Year always occurs between January 21 and February 20. This festival is known as the Spring Festival in China, Tet in Vietnam, and Seollal in Korea. Most of the world organises time through a solar year, in which time is measured by Earth’s revolution around the sun. Nearly a quarter of the world – across East Asian countries – pauses to celebrate the New Year, to mark the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Today (February 17) marks Lunar New Year.
What does the Year of the Horse mean?
- The animals and performances are believed to bring good fortune.
- This is why many people clean their homes before the celebrations, as many clean to remove any misfortune or bad luck lingering ahead of the new year.
- On the Chinese opera stage, a painted red face usually denotes a sacred or loyal personage and sometimes a great emperor.
- Geomancy masters may interpret the data differently, but there is usually a consensus on what the year means for each zodiac animal based on the positions of the stars.
- Marking the first new moon of the lunar calendar, it falls on February 17 in 2026, kicking off the 15-day Spring Festival.
Visitors will be showered with gifts after catching up over Lunar New Year treats. Bags are stocked with presents and fruits to give out at people’s homes. For instance, in some northern areas people tend to serve dumplings and noodles, whereas the south can’t live without steamed rice.
Why are red decorations commonly used during the celebration?
In Bangkok, there are large celebrations in Chinatown, Yaowarat Road, where the main road is closed and turned into a pedestrian street, with a member of the royal family in attendance each year to open the ceremony, such as Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Chinese New Year is observed as a public holiday in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, Satun, and Songkhla. Celebrations are centered primarily in Binondo in Manila, the oldest Chinatown in the world, with other celebrations taking place in key cities. Chinese temples are generally open for 24 hours on the first day, distributing red envelopes and sometimes rice, fruits or sugar to the poor.citation needed On 19 January 2001, the Ministry of Religious Affairs issued Ministerial Decree No.13 of 2001 on Imlek Day as a National Holiday to set Hari Tahun Baru Imlek as a “facultative holiday” for the Chinese community.
Spring Festival Shopping (办年货)
This practice reflects the common desire among the Chinese people to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new year, to rid themselves of past poverty and hardships, and to usher in a prosperous and auspicious life in the new year. As a substitute, large-scale fireworks displays have been sponsored by governments in Hong Kong and Singapore. While fireworks and firecrackers are traditionally very popular, some regions have banned them due to concerns over fire hazards. Business managers may also give bonuses in the form of red packets to employees.
In Taiwan in the 2000s, some employers also gave red packets as a bonus to maids, nurses, or domestic workers from Southeast Asian countries, although whether this is appropriate is controversial. Incense, tea, fruits, vegetarian food or roasted pig, and gold paper are served as customary protocol for paying respect to an honored person. While large firework displays are popular in some places, Taiwan tends to focus more on temple visits, lantern-lighting ceremonies, and family reunions.citation needed ‘Spring Festival’ is the standard and official term; people in Taiwan typically do not use “Spring Festival” in daily conversations.
Because it marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year and coincides with the return of spring and the revival of all things, people name it “Spring Festival”. The name “Spring Festival” literally means a festival celebrating the arrival of spring. As one of the most important and distinctive traditional Chinese folk festivals, Chinese New Year carries rich cultural connotations and profound national emotions. Although Vietnam replaces the Rabbit with the Cat in its zodiac sequence, the Year of the Horse remains consistent across these cultures, underscoring shared cosmological heritage. These practices reflect the enduring symbolic association between the horse and swift achievement. The horse, delayed by helping others along the way, finished seventh – reinforcing cultural values of loyalty and benevolence.
Geomancy masters may interpret the data differently, but there is usually a consensus on what the year means for each zodiac animal based on the positions of the stars. Your personal zodiac animal sign is determined by your year of birth, meaning 2026 will welcome plenty of baby Horses. Whether you’re unfamiliar with the occasion or need a refresher, this guide to ushering in the Year of the Horse has you covered. Religious activities and preparations for Lunar New Year would begin on this day.
The parade is attended by some 500,000 people, along with another 3 million TV viewers. They invited a variety of other groups from the city to participate, and they marched down what today are Grant Avenue and Kearny Street, carrying colourful flags, banners, lanterns, drums, and firecrackers to drive away evil spirits. In 1849, with the discovery of gold and the ensuing California Gold Rush, over 50,000 people came to San Francisco to seek their fortune or just a better way of life. The festival incorporates Grant and Kearny Streets into its street festival and parade route, respectively. The San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade is the oldest and one of the largest events of its kind outside of Asia, and one of the largest Asian cultural events in North America. Many communities throughout all of California celebrate with large celebrations taking place in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles, as well as in Fresno, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Rosa, and Stockton.
On the sixth day, known as Horse’s Day, people drive away the Ghost of Poverty by discarding the garbage accumulated during the festival. In other regions with a longer Chinese New Year holiday, celebrations include welcoming back the gods who were previously sent off on this day. In communities that celebrate Chinese New Year for 15 days, the fourth day marks the beginning of corporate “spring dinners” and the return to normal business operations.
These yearly combinations are believed to influence the traits of the era and the people born in that year. Every year, a different animal is honoured based on the Chinese zodiac. In 2027, the celebrations will begin on Saturday, February 6, ushering in the Year of the Goat. For many families, the festival marks more than a change of date, but a cultural reset rooted in renewal, reunion and hope for the months ahead. Community carnivals, family gatherings, parades, traditional food, and fireworks will mark the Year of the Horse. A huge part of Asian culture is not just family and togetherness – but incredible food.