02.02.2024 / Happy Lunar New Year 2024! /Year of the Green Wooden Dragon/
APACCCEEC’s team would like to extend warm greetings to all friends and partners for the upcoming Chinese New year – the Year of the Dragon, beginning on 10th of February this year. More specifically, this is a Wooden Dragon year. Wood indicates calmness, loyalty, and reliability.
The so-called Lunisolar Calendar, which originated in China, relies on both sun and moon cycles to calculate dates. In time, the Lunisolar Calendar has achieved great popularity throughout Asia, and is at the foundation of the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac.
It is well known that dragons hold a special place in traditional Chinese folklorе, and of all the animals in the zodiac, only dragons are mythical beings. In Chinese culture, the Dragon plays a significant role as an auspicious and extraordinary creature, unparalleled in talent and excellence. It symbolizes power, nobility, honor, luck, and success. In Chinese mythology, Dragons have the great power to control wind and rain, soar through the skies, turn over rivers and seas, bringing prosperity to the world and agricultural gains to the previously agrarian society of China. Dragons are considered as mighty mascots, acting as the link between heaven, earth, and humans, to bring good weather for plentiful harvests and a boom in wealth. For that reason, in ancient times, Emperors were regarded as real “Dragons” and the “Sons of Heaven”, and Chinese people were assumed to the descendants of this majestic creature.
As the most important holiday for all of China, the Spring Festival each year brings on the world’s largest yearly migration, which is when over a billion people travel to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year festivities. Traditionally, the Chinese New Year is a time for family gatherings, plentiful food and joyful celebrations that last for weeks. On the eve of the Spring Festival, families hold a large dinner, which is said to be the most important meal of the entire year. The color red, which symbolizes prosperity, dominates people’s clothing and decorations, and Red envelopes, known as “Hong Bao” in Chinese wish cash inside, get exchanged for good luck.
Some other Chinese New Year traditions which are still followed to this day, include holding memorials, saying prayers to ancestors and ancient deities for luck and good harvest, cleaning the house, decorating with red lanterns, visiting relatives and friends, exchanging gifts, hanging calligraphy with the “Fu/福” Chinese character, which means “good fortune”, making dumplings, dragon and lion dances, as well as setting off fireworks or firecrackers.
We warmly extend our Chinese New Year’s greeting to everyone with the phrase, “Xin nian hao!/新年好!”
