Is Lunar New Year Chinese New Year?
Commentary
Many Asians celebrate Lunar New Year, but Chinese patriots seemingly do not like this name. A Chinese student at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University found this name on a display board disagreeable, crossed out “Lunar,” and wrote “Chinese” below it. The British Museum and South Korea co-hosted an event to celebrate the Korean Lunar New Year, and some “little pinks (young pro-CCP Chinese)” stormed the Museum’s Facebook page to comment, “Spring Festival (mainland Chinese’s way of saying ‘Lunar New Year’) belongs to China.” Finally, the post was deleted.
To modern Chinese revolutionaries, such excesses of the “little pinks” are like flies hovering over cultural garbage spurned by the revolutionary forefathers. They seem unaware that since the 1911 Revolution, the “Lunar New Year” has been denounced by generations of Chinese people, even up to now. After the Republic of China—Asia’s first republic—was founded, the Gregorian calendar was adopted. However, considering that the “old customs” were difficult to eradicate at once, the government renamed Lunar New Year as Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival as Summer Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival as Autumn Festival, and Winter Solstice as Winter Festival and had them celebrated in a less elaborate manner. In other words, Lunar New Year was already history at that time. After the success of the Northern Expedition with Chiang Kai-shek moving the capital to Nanjing, the Nationalist Government announced the abolition of the lunar calendar and all holidays previously assigned for lunar festivals. For those who insisted on the Lunar New Year, the government derived a defamatory term for it—”New Year of the Abolished Calendar”—in an attempt to minimize its celebration….