Celebrating Chinese New Year
Brian Hennessy. Cairns, Australia. January, 2025
Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival as it is known locally, is China’s longest and most important festival. It begins with the first new moon of the lunar calendar and ends on the first full moon, 15 days later. In 2025, Spring festival will last from January 28th to February 4th.
Every year has a zodiac animal: the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. Positive traits of these animals are bestowed on people born in that year.
This year 2025 is the Year of the Snake
Strengths
The snake symbolizes longevity, wisdom, and mystery in Chinese culture. Combining the snake and “wood” elements means 2025 will be a year of propensity and mystery. The focus is on new beginnings, self-improvement, and career growth. The first half is ideal for pursuing new opportunities and making decisions about money. The latter half emphasizes stability, teamwork, and long-lasting relationships.
Snake Weaknesses
However, vigilance is necessary, as a weakness of the Water element this year may result in deficits in flexibility and empathy, both in professional and personal contexts. At work, this could lead to a stagnation of creative ideas and hindered collaboration.
Celebrating Chinese New Year
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How do Chinese people celebrate Spring Festival?
Prior to Spring Festival in China, houses are cleaned in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and make way for incoming good luck. Windows and doors are decorated with red paper-cuts and characters spelling out themes of good fortune, happiness, wealth, and longevity. Further, any outstanding debts are repaid to make sure that the New Year begins with a clean slate.
And all over the country, millions of relatives will travel long distances in overcrowded buses and trains (and by air) to return to their hometown and reunite with family.
Chinese people value family – the Confucian bedrock of this ancient society – and at the beginning of Spring Festival the extended family will gather together for a celebratory banquet.
After the meal, everyone will relax by playing mah-jong, eating leftovers from the banquet, and watching variety shows on TV. Later on, absent relatives will be visited, money will be given in red envelopes, and firecrackers and rockets will be lit in order to banish any bad spirits which might have been hanging around.
During this time individuals will speak kind words to each other because they believe that bad words spoken at the beginning of the year may attract bad luck for the rest of the year. It is important to celebrate the new year with correct behaviour and good intentions.
Xin nian kuaile (Happy New Year); and Gong xi fa cai (Hope you will be rich).
Happy Chinese New year to everybody!
Published in the Cairns Post.