The Korean New Year, known as Solnal, is celebrated as a three day family-oriented holiday. Individuals travel to their hometowns to visit their family members and to conduct memorial services for their ancestors, charye, to celebrate family-ties. Many people drink gui balki sool, a special liquor that is thought to help you hear clearly all year long.
Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, celebrates the coming of happiness, wealth, longevity, luck, and prosperity over a two week period. Before the arrival of Chinese New Years, families focus on cleaning the house to sweep away all ill-fortunes away to make way for incoming good luck. On Chinese New Year’s Eve, large family reunion dinners are held with foods served representing wealth, happiness, and good fortune.
Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, is prepared with the cooking of special holiday foods like Banh Chung and displaying kumquat trees or flower branches for good luck. People visit relatives and neighbors to bring good wishes and children get Li Xi (red envelopes with lucky money) from elders. While the other 11 zodiac animals are the same between the Chinese and Vietnamese Lunar New Year, the Vietnamese zodiac uses the “cat” rather than the “rabbit” symbol for this year.
The Tibetan New Year, Losar, is celebrated anywhere between 1-15 days. Monasteries prepare for the New Year by cleaning and put up their finest decorations. On the dawn of Losar, a ‘sacrificial cake’, tor ma, is offered to the highest power of Dharma protectors, the goddess Palden Lhamo.
The Mongolian Lunar New Year, Tsagaan Sar, is often celebrated in the home dwelling of the eldest in the family. Homes and barns are cleaned on Bituun, the day before Tsagaan Sar, in order to meet the New Year fresh. On the day of Tsagaan Sar, a lavish feast is held, often requiring preparation of days in advance.
Lunar New Year is an important holiday for many cultures to bring family together, push out the ill fortunes, and bring in good luck.Year of the Black Dragon!! a very special year when the zodiac is not an “animal”.
To bring you success and happiness!
(via cosmopolitan-fascist)
