New Year

Yuan-tungJanuary 1st... Perhaps the most important of the holidays for us – the New Year – in China (where it is now called Yuan Dan) passes quite unnoticed. No noisy night feasts, New Year's "Lights", sparkling Christmas trees and red-nosed deadmoroses with bags of gifts. Only in major department stores and shopping centers, paying tribute to Western traditions, put shiny artificial Christmas trees and puppet Santa Claus, and the Chinese send their Western friends electronic New Year cards. This is done on Christmas Day, December 25, not New Year’s Day.

“Yuan-dan” means the first, initial day of the new year (yuan means “beginning”, tribute means “dawn”, or simply “day”). The New Year in China until the XXth century was counted according to the lunar, and not at all according to the usual calendar, and Yuan Dan was celebrated on the first day of the first lunar month. In different eras, Yuan Dan fell on different seasons, as the countdown of the new year was conducted from different months. After the calendar reforms of the Han emperor Wu-Di (140-86 BC), it began to fall on that period of time in January-February, in which Chun Jie is now celebrated in China, i.e., the “Spring Festival”, the new year according to the lunar calendar.

After the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, a government decree called the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar “Spring Festival” (Chun Jie), and the first of January in the Western calendar – “New Year” (Xin Nan).

On September 27, 1949, the government of the newly created People’s Republic of China decided to call the first day of the lunar calendar “Spring Festival” (Chun Jie), and the first January in the Western calendar – “Yuan Dan”. Since then, January 1 has become an official state holiday in China.

But today, the Chinese still do not celebrate this day, not perceiving it as a festive, marking the change of years. The “Western” New Year is not a competitor to the Lunar or Spring Festival.