The idea of a New Year celebration intrigues me. I think it captures something raw and essential in our nature: We need to experience a fresh start. We have a basic need to consciously acknowledge: “That is over. This is new.” We not only want to start again, we want to correct our mistakes, clean up the past, and do things in a new way. We want to slough off our old skin and grow into our fresh, new character. We are Eustace who Aslan transforms from a dragon into a human. We are Pinocchio who becomes a real boy. We are in the chrysalis, struggling to soon become a butterfly. The New Year is yet another chance for us to become the person we always envisioned ourselves to be. 

The Romans

This foundational makeover is symbolically achieved when a society celebrates their New Year. But different cultures choose different times of year on which to make the transition. Around 700 BC, the ancient Romans chose January to be their New Year because the god Janus represented the transitional movement between chaos and order, and we continue that tradition to this day. (For more on this, please read “Why is New Years on January 1?“)

The Chinese

Around 2000 BC, though, the Chinese chose their New Year to be when the new moon appears one month before the spring equinox. Why? The History Channel has a wonderful little four minute video about the Chinese New Year as it is celebrated today, and in it they refer to an ancient story called “The Legend of the Beast Nian.” I found a short account of that legend on the website of the Confucius Institute, and it tells of a beast that would come to eat people and livestock on the last day of the lunar year. The people were helpless to defeat it until an old man with silver hair came and “told them the three secret ‘weapons’ to drive Nian away – ‘items that are red in colour’, ‘bright lights’ and ‘firecrackers’.” The old man turned out to be a celestial being. This explains why the modern celebration is dominated by fireworks, the color red, and bright lights.

Year of the Wood Dragon

This coming February 10, 2024, the Chinese all over the world will take two weeks to celebrate their New Year, starting with the new moon and finishing with the full moon. This year–which is the 41st year of the 79th, 60 year cycle–will initiate the Year of the Wood Dragon. Families from all over the world will travel to reconnect with each other and enjoy food and shopping, much like we do at Christmas. At the end of two weeks they will put on a huge parade. San Francisco has the largest one outside of China.

Los Angeles, USA – February 13, 2016: Chinese dragon during the 117th Golden Dragon Parade, celebrating Chinese New Year and the Year of the Monkey.

A Lunar Calendar

Since we westerners are not raised in a culture that uses a lunar calendar, it’s a little difficult  for us to envision what all this means and why it matters. On a lunar calendar, the first day of a month begins with a new moon. In today’s world, the new moon is calculated while it is still invisible, meaning it is still too close to the sun to be seen with the naked eye. As the picture below shows, the moon is moving along with the sun on February 10 as seen from Beijing, China, and since it is in the sky following the sun all day, it is invisible.

New Moon of Feb. 10, 2024. Viewed from Beijing China.

However, on Feb. 11 as the sun sets in the west and the sky begins to get dark, a very thin sliver of a moon may become visible for a short time.

Chinese New Year Day 2: Feb 11, 2024

Then, on the next day, Feb. 12, it will be about another 10 degrees further from the sun, and it will definitely be visible (as long as there are no clouds, of course).

Chinese New Year Day 3: Feb 12, 2024

The ancients used to calculate the new moon from its first visibility, but today our calculations can be so much more mathematically precise that we can predict exactly where the moon will be.

A Spring Festival in February?

It is still odd, though, that the Chinese believe that the month before the spring equinox (March 19 or 20) is the beginning of spring. We are over a month away from the spring equinox as of the publication of this article, but it hardly feels like spring.

On the other hand, what they believe also makes sense. I can go outside and see the first signs of life in the buds of some of our trees. Winter is weakening and spring is strengthening. This also happens during the other seasons. For example, winter shows up around the first part of November, which is a little over a month before the winter solstice on December 21. 

An Agrarian Culture

But why was identifying the first stirrings of spring so important to the Chinese (besides the legend of the Beast Nian)? As this article from Columbia University explains,

The marking of the passage of time in China has for millennia been closely linked to the cyclical pattern of agricultural production. The vast majority of the population of this agrarian society has always resided in rural areas and supported itself directly or indirectly by the tilling of the soil. One’s activities were arranged around events necessary to sustain life: plowing the fields, sowing seed, nurturing the crops, and gathering the harvest. As such it was necessary to be able to keep track of the optimal times for performing certain tasks. If a peasant waited too long to plant a crop, he might miss advantageous spring rains; if he hesitated to reap his more delicate vegetables, he might lose them to the first frost.

However, beyond the agricultural reasons, there are also religious reasons for the New Year Spring Festival. The Columbia University article also states,

By New Year’s Eve, family members, some of whom may have traveled long distances to return home, gather for a reunion. In preparation for his return from heaven on New Year’s Day, the new portrait of the Kitchen God is hung, as are the brand new door gods, the duilian (door couplets), and any other festive decor. Some southern families place stalks of sugar cane behind the doors. The height and section-upon-section construction of the sweet stalks represented the family’s hope for a ladder-like ascent to new levels of glory in the coming 12 months. Everyone dresses up, preferably in new clothes, and is on best behavior.

Traditionally, on this last night of the year, the male head of the household led the family in making offerings to various gods of the house and to the ancestors.

A Religious Festival

At its foundation then, the Chinese New Years celebration is religious, but that is true for all other cultures as well. For example, the Roman king Numa Pompilius was an extremely religious man (he called himself Pontifex Maximus) and he chose January to represent the spiritual transformation of Roman society. Just because we in the modern west try to make it out to be secular, that doesn’t mean its origins weren’t religious.

The Chinese also see their Spring Festival as a way to connect with their family, their ancestors, and with the natural cycles of the year, spring being the time of renewal and of new life.

Fascinating, isn’t it? I grew up thinking New Years was a non-religious holiday; a mere mathematical calculation based upon the transition of one solar year to the next.  The reality, though, is that they are all rooted in religion.

What’s Next?

I am going to continue looking at the religious beliefs of different cultures as represented in their New Years festivals, and the next one will be the Babylonians, who put their New Year near the spring equinox. Following that will be the Muslims and the Egyptians, who put theirs in July, and then we will discuss the Hebrews, who celebrate theirs in the fall. We will also explore how the Jewish New Year points to the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ.

Please subscribe to get updates on when these future installments will be published. I try to post a new article every two weeks or so, but if I can’t always keep that commitment please be patient!

Blessings!