Year of the Rabbit Trivia | 54 facts about the Lunar New Year

“Year of the Rabbit” is the name of the year 2023 according to the Chinese calendar.

So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the new year.

1. Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar
2. In Chinese, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival
3. As the spring season in the lunisolar calendar traditionally starts with lichun, the first of the twenty-four solar terms which the festival celebrates around the time of the Chinese New Year
4. Marking the end of winter and the beginning of the spring season, observances traditionally take place from New Year’s Eve
5. The evening preceding the first day of the year to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year
6. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February
7. Chinese New Year is one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture, and has strongly influenced Lunar New Year celebrations of its 56 ethnic groups
8. Such as the Losar of Tibet, and of China’s neighbours, including the Korean New Year, and the Tết of Vietnam, as well as in Okinawa
9. It is also celebrated worldwide in regions and countries that houses significant Overseas Chinese or Sinophone populations, especially in Southeast Asia
10. These include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam
11. It is also prominent beyond Asia, especially in Australia, Canada, Mauritius, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as various European countries
12. The Chinese New Year is associated with several myths and customs. The festival was traditionally a time to honor deities as well as ancestors.
13. Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the New Year vary widely
14. The evening preceding the New Year’s Day is frequently regarded as an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner
15. It is also a tradition for every family to thoroughly clean their house, in order to sweep away any ill fortune and to make way for incoming good luck
16. Another custom is the decoration of windows and doors with red paper-cuts and couplets
17. Popular themes among these paper-cuts and couplets include good fortune or happiness, wealth, and longevity
18. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red envelopes
19. The Chinese calendar defines the lunar month containing the winter solstice as the eleventh month, meaning that Chinese New Year usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice
20. Rarely the third if an intercalary month intervenes
21. In more than 96 percent of the years, Chinese New Year’s Day is the closest date to a new moon to lichun on 4 or 5 February, and the first new moon after dahan
22. In the Gregorian calendar, the Chinese New Year begins at the new moon that falls between 21 January and 20 February
23. According to legend, Chinese New Year started with a mythical beast called the Nian (a beast that lives under the sea or in the mountains) during the annual Spring Festival
24. The Nian would eat villagers, especially children in the middle of the night
25. One year, all the villagers decided to hide from the beast. An older man appeared before the villagers went into hiding and said that he would stay the night and would get revenge on the Nian
26. The old man put red papers up and set off firecrackers
27. The day after, the villagers came back to their town and saw that nothing had been destroyed
28. They assumed that the old man was a deity who came to save them
29. The villagers then understood that Yanhuang had discovered that the Nian was afraid of the color red and loud noises
30. Then the tradition grew when New Year was approaching, and the villagers would wear red clothes, hang red lanterns, and red spring scrolls on windows and doors and used firecrackers and drums to frighten away the Nian
31. From then on, Nian never came to the village again
32. The Nian was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk
33. While “Chinese New Year” remains the official name for the festival in Taiwan, the name “Spring Festival” was adopted by the People’s Republic of China instead
34. On the other hand, some in the Chinese diaspora use the term “Lunar New Year”, while “Chinese New Year” remains a popular and convenient translation for people of non-Chinese cultural backgrounds
35. Along with the Han Chinese in and outside Greater China, as many as 29 of the 55 ethnic minority groups in China also celebrate Chinese New Year
36. Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines celebrate it as an official festival
37. Chinese New Year is observed as a public holiday in some countries and territories where there is a sizable Chinese population
38. Since Chinese New Year falls on different dates on the Gregorian calendar every year on different days of the week, some of these governments opt to shift working days in order to accommodate a longer public holiday
39. In some countries, a statutory holiday is added on the following work day if the New Year (as a public holiday) falls on a weekend, as in the case of 2013, where the New Year’s Eve (9 February) falls on Saturday and the New Year’s Day (10 February) on Sunday
40. Depending on the country, the holiday may be termed differently; common names in English are “Chinese New Year”, “Lunar New Year”, “New Year Festival”, and “Spring Festival”
41. For New Year celebrations that are lunar but are outside of China and Chinese diaspora (such as Korea’s Seollal and Vietnam’s Tết), see the article on Lunar New Year
42. During the festival, people around China will prepare different gourmet dishes for their families and guests
43. Influenced by the flourished cultures, foods from different places look and taste totally different
44. Among them, the most well-known ones are dumplings from northern China and Tangyuan from southern China
45. The day before the Chinese New Year usually accompanied with a dinner feast, consisting of special meats are served at the tables, as a main course for the dinner and as an offering for the New Year
46. This meal is comparable to Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. and remotely similar to Christmas dinner in other countries with a high percentage of Christians
47. In northern China, it is customary to make jiaozi, or dumplings, after dinner to eat around midnight
48. Dumplings symbolize wealth because their shape resembles a Chinese sycee
49. In contrast, in the South, it is customary to make a glutinous new year cake (niangao) and send pieces of it as gifts to relatives and friends in the coming days
50. Niángāo [Pinyin] literally means “new year cake” with a homophonous meaning of “increasingly prosperous year in year out”
51. After dinner, some families may visit local temples hours before midnight to pray for success by lighting the first incense of the year
52. However in modern practice, many households held parties to celebrate
53. Traditionally, firecrackers were lit to ward evil spirits when the household doors sealed, and are not to be reopened until dawn in a ritual called “opening the door of fortune”
54. A tradition of staying up late on Chinese New Year’s Eve is known as shousui, which is still practised as it is thought to add on to one’s parents’ longevity