Happy New Year! On Feb. 1, people all across the world celebrated Lunar New Year, the day that marks the beginning of the Lunar Calendar. Lunar New Year is celebrated mainly in East Asia, specifically China, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. Depending on the country, you can see a variety of ways that is celebrated. Such as in China, Lunar New Year is signified with the use of red decorations, exchanging gifts and watching the dragon or lion dances.
In Korea, the Lunar New Year is called Seollal. An important aspect of the week-long celebration in Korea is Sebae, a ritual which emphasizes showing respect toward elders and is unique to Korea. Regardless of what country that celebrates Lunar you happen to be in, in late Jan. or early Feb., every country celebrates the holiday by meeting with family, eating delicious food and in showing respect or honoring ancestors.
You don’t have to travel halfway across the world to celebrate this very exciting holiday. Many people right here in the United States take time to celebrate the culture and significant meaning behind Lunar New Year. Every year San Francisco hosts the biggest Lunar New Year parade in the United States. These parades emulate much of what you would see during the celebrations in Asia. With them come the same food, decorations, costumes and rituals you would expect to see in East and Southeast Asia.
The Asian Cultural Association has worked to create awareness of the important holiday. By discussing the holiday at their meetings and sharing information about the holiday on their social media, they have worked to start a conversation about the culturally significant holiday on campus. As the Asian Cultural Student Association continues to expand, president Joanna Shultz has big things planned for next year’s celebration. “In future years we would like to hold a much larger celebration to involve the whole campus as the Lunar New Year is an extremely important holiday for people who are Asian as well as Asian-American” Joanna Shultz said. An event like this would surely work toward their goal of creating an inclusive environment at Etown, and to spread Asian culture to students who may have otherwise not had an opportunity to be exposed to it.
It is not just people here at Etown that are hoping for more recognition and acknowledgement of this important, predominantly East Asian holiday. Currently there is a proposal in the United States House of Representatives to make the Lunar New Year a federal holiday. Making Lunar New Year a federal holiday would be a significant move to ensure that the communities that celebrate the holiday get the proper recognition for their culture and heritage. It would send a message to people within the Asian community that celebrate the holiday that this is an important aspect that makes up what it means to be American and that this holiday is valued by all Americans.
Lunar New Year is a huge holiday for much of the world, and there is a significant amount of people here in the United States that celebrate this worldwide holiday. Despite the amount of people that celebrate the holiday here in the US there is still work to be done to make sure that the holiday gets the recognition that it deserves, which is why work being done by organizations like the Asian Cultural Student Association is important. Next year, Lunar New Year falls on Jan. 22, we look forward to celebrating it with you!
