January 30, 2025

Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, is China’s most important festival.

The date of the Lunar New Year is determined by the traditional Chinese calendar, a lunisolar calendar that blends solar, lunar, and other cycles. It is an annual 15-day festival in China and Chinese communities around the world. It is celebrated on the second new moon after the winter solstice, sometime between January 21 and February 20.

Festivities are celebrated with family and friends, continuing for 15 days until the Lantern Festival, which marks the final day of the traditional celebrations. During the lantern festival, paper lanterns with riddles written on them are lit and set out for others to watch and solve.

The history of the festival can be traced back to about 3,500 years ago. Its exact beginning date is not recorded, but some people believe that Chinese New Year originated in the Shang Dynasty (1600–1046 BC).

According to The Calgary Herald, Lunar New Year celebrations began with a legend of a visit to a deserted village many, many years ago:

“The visitor, a Buddhist monk, knocked on the door of the last and only inhabited house in the village, in which lived an old lady. She told him that every year, on December 31, a monster [Nian] with a big mouth and eyes, whose tread made the ground tremble, and roared like thunder, would come down to the village and feed on its residents.

This year, the villagers had fled, but the old lady, too old and unable to walk fast enough had remained and accepted her fate. ‘If I be eaten, so be it,’ she told the monk.

The monk told her he knew how to face the monster and asked the lady to slaughter a chicken, cook a meal, but save the blood. After he and the lady feasted, he smeared the blood on the door and windows and asked the lady for a red cloth, which he used to tie several bamboo sticks together.

By sundown, they could hear the monster roaring as he came down to the village. He came into the village, looking for people to eat and smelled the monk and the lady inside her house. Attempting to enter the house through the doors and windows, the monster was frustrated to find that the colour red repelled him.

As he ran around the house trying to find a way in, the monk came out, with a red rope around his body. The monster tried to eat him and once again, found that he couldn’t touch the monk because of the red rope. The monk began to beat a tune with the tied bamboo sticks, a tune with the power to drive the monster back into the forest and never to be seen again.

When the villagers came back, they were surprised to find the old lady alive and she told them everything that happened.”

Celebrations to usher out the old year and bring forth the luck and prosperity of the new one, therefore, often include firecrackers, fireworks, and red clothes and decorations. Young people are given money in colourful red envelopes. In addition, Chinese New Year is a time to feast and to visit family members. Many traditions of the season honour ancestors and relatives who have died.

Learn more about the rich cultural heritage of Calgary's Chinatown in the Chinatown Historical Context Paper. 

Sources:

“History of Chinese New Year”, Timothy S.Y. Lam Museum of Anthropology.

“Spring Festival in the eyes of Chinese painters” Chinaculture.org. January 30, 2019.

“Year of the Snake: Lunar New Year origin and where to celebrate in Calgary”, by Devika Desai, The Calgary Herald. January 24, 2025.