The Lunar New Year is only a couple of weeks away, marking a special time of celebration for over a billion people, including some of Chaminade’s resident students.

To add some context, the Lunar New Year, also referred to as the Chinese New Year, is the world’s largest annual celebration. It emphasizes family traditions, renewal, and luck for the year to come. Several Asian countries outside of China, including South Korea and Vietnam, celebrate the Lunar New Year within their own traditional lunar calendars, despite officially using the Gregorian calendar.

For those who are unfamiliar, the Lunar New Year operates under the Chinese Zodiac, which is a calendar that combines a twelve-year animal cycle with five elements. This results in a 60-year cycle where each new year represents a unique blend of traits. This year is the year of the Fire Horse, which possesses deep cultural significance compared to last year’s Wood Snake.

The Fire Horse is one of the most historically infamous combinations in the Chinese Zodiac. The horse represents energy, independence, freedom, and confidence. Fire adds unpredictability, intensity, and boldness. Together, the Fire Horse symbolizes assertive action and change.

However, this zodiac pairing is notorious in Asian folklore. According to a piece about the Fire Horse by Dr. Micki Pistorius, an investigative psychologist, “folklore has it that a woman born in the year of the Fire Horse has a strong temperament and shortens her husband’s life, originating from a superstition regarding an arson-related tragedy involving a 16-year-old girl.”

The tragedies of the Fire Horse can be taken a step further, however. According to a data article titled “The Curse of the Fire-Horse,” Emi Suzuki and Haruna Kashiwase illustrated how fertility rates in Japan, a country that doesn’t even officially celebrate the Lunar New Year, saw a sudden drop from 2.1 children per woman in 1965 (a Wood Snake year) to 1.6 children in 1966 (a Fire Horse year). Japanese superstition says that “women born in this year [Fire Horse] have a bad personality and will kill their future husband.”

Of course, the historical nuance of the Fire Horse is not applicable in modern times. Now, the Fire Horse is reinterpreted positively, still representing its values of freedom, energy, and courage, but also seen as a symbol of empowerment for women. Old superstitions about how the Fire Horse was an unlucky year are now disregarded, as the year is now seen as a time to grow and rapidly change, marking a complete shift from how the Fire Horse was seen 60 years ago.

In order to get a better grasp on how the Lunar New Year is celebrated contemporarily, I interviewed one of Chaminade’s resident students, Shuxiang (Shawn) Lei from Xi’an, China, about what the Lunar New Year means to him.

Shawn told me that it represents a time of family reunion for him, comparing the celebration to Christmas in the West: “On this day, children who are away from home need to return home to celebrate the New Year and enjoy a happy reunion dinner together.”

Unfortunately, Shawn will not be celebrating the Lunar New Year in Xi’an this year. He told me that the biggest difference is “the absence of family companionship.” He said, “Although there are lion dances and garden fairs during the New Year celebration here, the absence of family members and the lack of hometown delicacies make it feel quite different.”

Some of Shawn’s favorite traditions in Xi’an include eating fried meatballs, fried New Year cakes, and fish, which symbolize “abundance every year.” He misses being able to sit with his parents to watch the Spring Festival Gala, writing New Year couplets together, and writing the character “Fu” together. (Fu [福] is the Chinese character for good fortune, traditionally written on red paper during celebrations). Additionally, his family always cleans the house together (a way to symbolize cleansing and renewal).

Like Shawn and many of the other resident students who celebrate Lunar New Year, this year can be seen as a time to be energetic, open to change, and resilient through hardship. All of us can take inspiration from the celebrations of the Lunar New Year by spending time with our families while focusing on personal growth and good fortune for the year to come.