The 2019 Lunar New Year Celebrations Have Begun!
By Lorah Snow
February 6, 2019
The Lunar New Year began at midnight on Feb. 5th this year, and over a billion people have begun celebrating it, according to The Guardian. People celebrate this holiday, which is also called the Chinese New Year and the Spring Festival, widely across Asia, and in many other places as well such as New York City.
Public festivities included fireworks and fire crackers, parades, lion and dragon dances, temple fairs, flower fairs, carnivals, the Lantern Festival, and more. The most widely watched event is the Spring Festival Gala in China, which this year included comedy acts, singing, dancing, acrobatics, martial arts, magic, and Chinese Opera. This show made a record for the Most Watched National Network TV Broadcast in 2012 according to Guinness World Records.
Lantern Festival
The celebration officially lasts for 15 days, this year from February 5 through February 19, but the celebratory period really goes on for about 40 days and very many people travel to see their families during this time. In fact, according to Guinness World Records, it is the largest annual human migration, with a record 2.26 billion rail journeys made in China over the 40-day period in 2010. Family activities include setting off fireworks and firecrackers, the reunion dinner, and giving children and single family members red packets with money inside.
So, what really is the lunar new year and why were people celebrating it on February 4th and 5th?
The lunar new year begins with the first new moon of the lunar calendar. This year that occurred on Feb. 5 and so some of the festivities celebrating the new year took place on Feb. 4, similar to how people who follow the Western calendar often celebrate the new year on December 31.
The lunar calendar is based on the monthly cycles of the moon phases. Each lunation is about 29 ½ days long. It is therefore common for the months of a lunar calendar to alternate between 29 and 30 days.
Twelve lunations, a lunar year, is therefore about 354 1/3 days long, 11 days shorter than the Western calendar. A lunar calendar does not follow the seasons so over the course of 33 years the lunar months cycle through all the seasons.
In contrast, the Western calendar is a solar calendar system that evolved out of a lunar system. And a lunisolar calendar is a calendar whose lunar months are brought into alignment with the solar year.
Modern day China uses the Western calendar, but the traditional Chinese calendar governs holidays, such as the Spring Festival (lunar new year). The traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar.
Civilizations around the world use a lunar calendar to govern when certain holidays occur. Examples of such holidays are Easter, Ramadan, and Rosh Hashanah.
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