This past Tuesday, billions of people celebrated the Lunar New Year, a celebration for many Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese people and diasporas. In America, this holiday is often called Lunar New Year as a general term to talk about the many cultures that share origin or characteristics. Similar to how “Happy Holidays” is used, “Lunar New Year” seems to be able to avoid some potentially unwanted tension between observers due to true origins or ownership. While this is a good use of a general term in this diverse country, if we truly want to be proud and respect the traditions of the past, using a romanized form of the holiday would be better. This romanized form would use the roman script to phonetically convert the original name of the holiday. By using this form, we can understand the tradition with more nuance of sophisticated Asian history and stop addressing Asian culture as a monolith. “Lunar New Year” would then result in the Chinese Chūnjié, the Korean Seollal, and the Vietnamese Tết.
First of all, this “lunar” system used in this celebration is not just a lunar calendar, and shouldn’t be remembered as only lunar. The system, initially thought to be created by the Zhou dynasty of China, and through a process of refining and dispersion, was also used in Korea and Vietnam. This system was a lunisolar system, using aspects from lunar dates and solar dates. The days of the months are based on the 29.5 days in the moon cycle, making 12 months of either 29 or 30 with a total of 354 days. However, this would be around 11 days less than the 365.25 scientific days of the solar year, leading to unmatched seasons and dates. Thus, the scientists at the time added a “leap month” every 2 or 3 years to match the seasons. The government relied on this condition as the dates were used for civil and spiritual observations, and farmers relied on the dates to see when they needed to schedule agriculture and business. Its name is “Nónglì”, literally “agricultural calendar” in Chinese. If the system didn’t have the leap month, it would then mess up where the harvest season would have been. The Islamic calendar functions similarly, which has religious observations like Eid and Ramadan on dates cycling in comparison to the Gregorian Calendar.
While that information might seem technical, these details of technological history are part of Asian American culture. If we say that this holiday is just lunar, it diminishes the important advancements and deep considerations of the systems that made the holiday. Acknowledging the technicalities allows us to appreciate some humanity of ancient societies, where they understood that agricultural patterns were deeply based on calendars, and thus should be taken seriously.
Secondly, the idea of using “Lunar New Year” as a catch-all term for celebrations of a common date seems to treat “Asian” culture as a monolith. While the origin came from Chinese dynasties, New Year celebrations vary in aesthetics and underlying spirit. For example, the Chinese celebration, Chūnjié, is characterized as a boisterous celebration, with red decorations, dancing dragons, and the popular red envelopes (hóngbāo) with money. On the other hand, the Korean celebration, Seollal, is much more solemn, concerned with familial piety, with food offered to deceased ancestors and bowing (sebae) to older relatives. Finally, the Vietnamese celebration, Tết, has regional differences, including specific folklore of Bánh chưng (a traditional food made during this time), as well as more homage towards Vietnam’s Buddhist identity.
Grouping these three extremely different celebrations by labeling them “Lunar New Year” flattens culture and promotes ambiguity. Using this faulty term limits the possibility for further interest, as “New Year” is globally understood, and “Lunar” incorrectly pins it to a solely lunar system, keeping the idea in the comfortable Western lens for those unfamiliar. Continuing to use the umbrella term would be like closing a door for further curiosity before anyone had the thought to ask, actively discouraging interest. The linguistic choice to group them leads to a “isn’t it all the same?” narrative by those uninitiated with the holiday. Conversely, if the original names are used, it may help push for necessary cultural differentiation between these cultures, revealing the interesting differences between this shared festival.
In conclusion, “Lunar New Year” doesn’t do cultural justice for the many holidays it encompasses. While it is acceptable to be used as a general term for the many Asian celebrations, we should use their original names. If that happens, the underlying cultures could be better understood through the knowledge of their origin from the lunisolar calendar, as well as keeping the many cultures of Asia differentiated to appreciate their growth in different terrains and subsequent histories. If the name of Mardi Gras is kept in French due to its unique origin from the large feasts in France, why can’t the celebrations of “Lunar New Year” become Chūnjié, Tết, and Seollal?
