The Earth passes a full rotation around the sun. It’s time to celebrate. Jan. 1 is the start of the new calendar year for Americans, but there’s a bigger celebration to mark a new year on its way, the Lunar New Year. Chinese teacher Miah Nickerson explains what marks the start of the Chinese spring festival celebration Chunje.
“The Lunar New Year is the New Year’s celebration in China, and some other countries where there’s a lot of Chinese people living,” Nickerson said.” It’s more so known as the spring festival because it is the start of spring according to the Chinese lunar calendar,”
Just like American New Year, Nickerson says the holiday is a time to set goals for the year to come, and celebrate.
“It’s a day where people try to set intentions for the new year,” Nickerson said. “People will clean their house, and buy new clothes. It’s also really fun when everybody makes dumplings together. And then as you’re waiting for them to cook, you’re just sort of hanging out, maybe playing games, eating together as a group. Whether it’s your friends or your family, it’s a really big part of the celebration.”
Making dumplings happens to be Junior Carrie Wang’s favorite part of the celebration.
“My favorite tradition is eating dumplings at midnight,” Wang said. “It’s tradition for the entire family to gather after dinner and make dumplings until midnight. I’ve made a lot of good memories while making dumplings with my family, so that’s definitely my favorite part of Lunar New Year.”
The holiday is two weeks long, although those in America don’t get to celebrate for as long, Wang describes.
“People in China get about two weeks off of school and work, but that’s not the case in America, so I have a lot less time to enjoy the Lunar New Year celebrations,” Wang said.
However, she thinks the Columbus Chinese Association does a good job bringing the celebration to Columbus.
“The Columbus Chinese Association does a really good job of putting together a celebration every year, but of course, it’s not nearly as big as celebrations in China,” Wang said.
Sophomore Richard Sun explains the event’s festivities.
“Columbus’s New Year event is a spring gala based on the one back in Beijing,” Sun said. “The spring gala is usually held the weekend before CNY. It is usually a large gala with dances, cultural performances, and activities that showcase Chinese and other Asian traditions. After that, a banquet is then traditionally hosted.”
This will be Nickerson’s first year going to the event as she tends to only celebrate during her classes’ yearly party.
“Our class will have our own Lunar New Year party,” Nickerson said. “That’ll be next week on Wednesday.”
Nickerson explains how she and her class celebrate.
”We have a lady from Northside Middle School,” Nickerson said.” Her name is Mrs. Gonzalez.
She actually studied calligraphy so she’s gonna come in and teach us how to make these poems. Eating dumplings is also a really big tradition on New Year, so we’ll make some dumplings, or at least eat them.”
She decorates the room whether it’s with store-bought or handmade decorations the students make.
“People will make decorations,” Nickerson said.” If they are really good at doing calligraphy, they’ll write them themselves, and the classes are gonna help me hang all of this stuff up.”
Nickerson’s students get to celebrate both Chinese and American New Year as well as other students like Sun.
“I personally celebrate both,” Sun said. “American New Year is more about social gatherings and personal goals, while Lunar New Year is more family-oriented and rich in tradition.”
While America has its own way of celebrating its new year, Wang thinks the Lunar New Year is better, and overall more meaningful.
“I definitely like celebrating Lunar New Year more, since it feels a lot more meaningful to celebrate, and I really enjoy all of the traditions,” Wang said. “Lunar New Year is very important to my family. We make sure to celebrate every year, despite living in the U.S., where it’s not as common to celebrate.”
