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Many Filipinos missed doing this on New Years Eve: lighting fireworks or a firecracker, blowing horns to create noise, and partying with friends. With the exception of Midnight, that sumptuous meal with relatives, when the clock struck twelve at night, everything else was not allowed in the 2020 New Year celebration.
The next day, the first day of January, the Christmas gift delivery continued by handing out cash and any available gifts left on the Christmas tree for visiting children and family members. But this has also become limited due to travel and movement restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
And if you think celebrating Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year 2021 would be much happier, think again.
The Filipinos have, more or less, similar celebrations with the Chinese. But history books attest that the celebration of the Filipinos is a holdover from that of the Chinese who have lived among our ancestors even before the Spanish invasion of the Philippines.
Apart from China, the Chinese New Year is celebrated in countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Australia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Mauritius, and also in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada. , where there are areas with a large Chinese community.
Security First
This year, to curb the resurgence of the virus, the Chinese authorities advised its inhabitants not to travel and to celebrate the holiday where they work and live.
The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival which celebrates both the beginning of a lunar new year (according to the Chinese lunar calendar) and the beginning of spring, is the largest festival in China, with a seven-day holiday. As the most colorful annual event, the traditional CNY celebration lasts longer, up to two weeks, and the climax comes around Lunar New Year’s Eve, on February 12 this year.
China during this period is dominated by iconic red lanterns, loud fireworks, banquets and massive parades, and the festival event triggers exuberant celebrations around the world. In fact, most major cities, including Shanghai and Hong Kong, put on an impressive fireworks display around midnight to welcome the New Year. But all these grandiosities have been stopped for now by public safety measures against the spread of the dreaded coronavirus.
In fear that the Spring Festival travel season, called Chunyun in Chinese, will become a wide-spread event, the Chinese authorities have imposed travel restrictions. This year’s Chunyun should have started on January 28 and will last until March 8, giving people time to travel potentially thousands of miles across China in time for the New Year, February 12, and vice versa.
In a normal year, China sees around three billion trips during the Chunyun period. But with strict rules this year, most did not travel for the Spring Festival. China’s National Health Commission had required people returning to rural areas to produce a negative Covid-19 test issued up to seven days before their departure during the Spring Festival. Then, they also have to be under a 14-day “home observation” period, which still allows them to leave their home, but forces them to monitor their temperature on a daily basis. During this time, they will also not be allowed to participate in meetings and will have to take a COVID test every seven days. Most Chinese considered these measures too impractical or too expensive.
According to a BBC News news report, migrant workers who chose to stay received incentives. The city of Hangzhou reportedly delivered 1,000 yuan (£ 113; $ 154), while companies in Zhejiang, Ningbo and Quanzhou also issued “red packages” for workers who chose not to return home.
Companies have also been encouraged to offer their workers subsidies, free food and to organize short cultural tours in an attempt to get them to stay. Meanwhile, Yiwu City offered free admission to cultural venues and facilities and gave children free participation in a winter camp, and allowed businesses that remain open during the Chinese New Year apply for subsidies.
In addition, in several places huge posters with slogans have also been put up encouraging people to stay. The one from Beijing says: “Don’t leave Beijing unless you have to. Don’t go abroad unless you have to. ”
Simple celebration this time
Chinese New Year’s Eve usually begins with ancestor worship. Incense candles are used while the Chinese sing the prayer to communicate and send greetings to the deceased and the gods. This is because the Chinese believe that the deceased ancestors continue their existence in some way to care for the family and influence the living world in a mystical way.
The family dinner, a reunion dinner, immediately follows with foods chosen by their lucky names or auspicious forms. In China, meals differ from region to region, but most include eight (an auspicious number) dishes of a large amount of meat along with a whole fish deliberately served late and unfinished, symbolizing that the next year will be filled with surplus. and abundance.
Some other traditional foods and lucky dishes for the Chinese include dumplings, noodles, a vegetarian dish called Buddha’s Delight, glutinous rice cakes, and mandarin oranges (also called tips).
There would be no lion and dragon dances to draw a huge crowd this year. These colorful dances, said to bring good luck, are performed outdoors to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals, usually in a street parade.
The lion dance, performed by just two dancers, is the more common of the two dance traditions seen at celebrations. While the dragon dances, performed by a group of acrobatic dancers, involve a long dragon creature raised on poles to be controlled by the performers. Drums, gongs and firecrackers create chaos meant to discourage spirits with evil intentions.
Vivid and bright red is the color of choice for the Chinese New Year. Red is considered an auspicious and lucky color in Chinese culture regardless of the occasion, but especially during the Lunar New Year.
Most of the decorations are red. With red lanterns adorning the streets, most towns and cities are literally painted red. At home, the most popular New Year decorations are fu, upside down dui lian, lanterns, year painting, paper cutting, door gods, etc.
No CNY is complete without the red envelope. Known in Mandarin as hong bao, seniors often give red envelopes containing money to children or young single adults. With the advent of technology, more so with the threat of the virus, various digital platforms now allow people to send money electronically to their friends as a digital form of hong bao.