Or: “Timekeeping is a fuck and this shit is convoluted”
Preface: There are 3 types of calendars. Solar (like the Gregorian calendar), Lunar (like the Islamic calendar) and Lunisolar (like the Hebrew calendar).
“The Korean lunisolar calendar, like most other East Asian calendars such as those of Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, among others, are all derived from historical variants of Chinese ones such as the Shixian calendar of the Ming dynasty.”
I’m not a die hard about calling it “Chinese New Year” despite TET in Vietnam and Seollal in Korea both being derived from the Chinese calendar, among others. They have adapted their own customs and traditions to it. Calling the celebration “Chinese New Year” is not the most accurate. I am of a mind to call it what matters to you, you don’t have to translate it. Ramadan is Ramadan, no need to translate it to “Scorching Heat”, Hanukkah is Hanukkah, no need to translate it to “Dedication”.
However, to call it “Lunar New Year” implies it’s the definitive lunar calendar, which erases other civilizations’ timekeeping traditions. There are multiple lunar calendars with their own lunar new years such as Ugadi in India, Hijri in Muslim countries and the Tamil calendar as well.
Not to mention the Chinese calendar is actually lunisolar and not solely lunar, incorporating both solar and lunar timekeeping, so “Lunar New Year” is half accurate at best. Switching to calling it “Lunisolar New Year” also runs into similar issues, the Thai calendar is lunisolar (but Songkran/Thai New Year is in April) as is the Hebrew calendar (Rosh Hashanah/Hebrew New Year is in Sept-Oct)
In China, using 农历/agricultural calendar (due to its historical significance in relation to farming) or 旧历/old calendar to refer to the Chinese calendar are the most accurate whereas 阴历/lunar calendar and 阳历/solar calendar being common vernacular despite being technically incorrect.
Just call it 春节/Spring Festival or 新年/New Year, it’s the most common terms (元旦 is the most common way of referring to the Gregorian new year in China itself.) It really doesn’t matter that much to us. The term “Chinese New Year” is rarely used in China and was probably a term used by Chinese immigrants for the benefit of Westerners.
Tl;Dr “Lunar New Year” is well meaning but incorrect, erases other lunar calenders and recently has been used maliciously.
Chinese diaspora calls Chinese new year 农历新年 (agricultural calendar new year). 春节 is really only used by people who came from China. If you go and ask Chinese diaspora and their descendants from South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand etc. they will use 农历新年. In Hong Kong, it’s also 农历新年 (agricultural calendar new year).
农历 (agricultural calendar) itself was based on 夏历 (summer calendar, also known as 阴历 or lunar calendar) and further combined with elements from 阳历 (solar calendar) to compose a lunisolar calendar.
There is nothing wrong with calling it a Lunar New Year. That’s what Chinese people who have settled down outside of China have been calling for more than a century.
All the Chinese diaspora I know just say 新年. And it reveals an important point: nobody cares about Solar New Years relative to Chinese New Years, so there’s no point to even talk about Solar New Years, meaning there’s no ambiguity when people say 新年. For Chinese New Years, there’s traditions that are still followed with various degrees of observance. Meanwhile, there’s no tradition associated with Solar New Years. What do you have to do exactly before 1/1? People have (Solar) New Years Eve parties, but that isn’t really a tradition either because it’s not like those parties have any act that you have to do right before 1/1. Food and beverages are basically Christmas leftovers or things already associated with Christmas like eggnog.
I suppose it makes sense since Christmas is technically 12 days (hence the Christmas carol 12 Days of Christmas). Christmas Day is the one people think when they hear Christmas because USians poor understanding of Christianity cause them to think Christmas is only one day instead of twelve, which eventually got exported to non-Christian countries like Japan. 1/1 is the 8th day of Christmas and the feast associated with it is the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ to commemorate when Jesus got circumcised.
Fascinating, I’m Chinese diaspora but we always called it 春节 or 新年 in our house, I assume because my parents are from mainland China. Actually I think we most commonly just say “过年” in casual conversation because I can’t think of a lot of situations in which we would have to specify which holiday we’re referring to when January-February rolls around and the preparations begin.
Yes I actually learned that outside of mainland China, like in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, people don’t refer to Chinese new year as 春节 but more commonly 农历新年 (to distinguish it from the “Western” new year), at least in local media publications. And yes 过年 is colloquially used and I think quite universally as well.
Is that true? I can’t find a source for that and only remember this term being common in the last decade or so
I meant “Lunar New Year” in English btw
You mean 农历新年? My partner is Chinese from a SEA country and it’s been used that way by Chinese diaspora for at least as many decades as their parents have been alive. I know Hong Kong people use it as well and they made up a good proportion of the Chinese immigrant circle in Western countries. I’ve really only heard of 春节 used by people from mainland China.
I meant “Lunar New Year” in English
春节 has been the formal way of saying it since the (first) republic, to disambiguate it from the Gregorian new year. So roughly the fall of the Qing dynasty
I’m not disagreeing that people call it the Lunar New Year, however I was highlighting that calling it the capital L Lunar new year makes it seem it was the only or the most predominant lunar new year when there are others and the Chinese calendar actually being lunisolar and not purely lunar does a disservice.
Like any other diaspora term (唐人街 is a big one despite how far removed we are from the Tang dynasty and dynastic rule as a whole), it tends not to encompass the whole.
在国内我遇到了很多不同的说法，可是外国人不了解这个方面。
加上“农历” being more specific as opposed to “阴历” 我觉得也重要
From Baidu Baike:
It is the common folks who have been mistakenly calling it a lunar calendar for years.
But I agree with you that you can hear many different versions of it being called in foreign countries, possibly because Chinese diaspora itself is very diverse with people of Chinese descent coming from many different parts of the world. I think the Hong Kong immigrants were some of the earliest wave of Chinese immigrants that set the initial trend of how things are called.