By Homage Senior Services
Ethnic communities around the world are getting eager and excited for one of the most festive holidays around, the Lunar New Year.
Linked to the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, the Lunar New Year typically takes place in late January or early February and this year, falls on Feb. 16.
The Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese are three groups in particular who’ve celebrated the Lunar New Year for thousands of years, each having their own unique holidays, traditions and festivities to celebrate a new time.
For the Chinese, this is when their Spring Festival takes place. Family and friends come together, a number of community activities are held and doors are opened for good fortune. Firecrackers are lit to ward off evil spirits, and houses and streets are heavily decorated in red. On Lunar New Year’s Day, children are given red envelopes with money inside for luck. Celebrations come to a close two weeks later with the traditional Lantern Festival.
Koreans celebrate the Lunar New Year with a holiday known as Seollal. Seollal is a three-day long celebration that begins the day before the Lunar New Year and ends the day after.
Traditionally, family members from far and wide travel to the home of the oldest male, where everyone pays respect to both their ancestors and elders. Ancestral worship is the biggest part of Seollal, but the days are filled with food, family, games and plenty of festivities. It’s often said Seollal is similar to Thanksgiving.
The Vietnamese have a Lunar New Year holiday as well called Tet. Tet, like Seollel, is three days long. People spend weeks preparing for Tet, cleaning their homes, decorating and cooking traditional foods as they wait for relatives to return home.
Although Tet is a national holiday among Vietnamese, each region and religion has its own customs. Family and friends visit one another and people often spend time at temples or churches to worship their ancestors. Like the Chinese, “lucky” money is given to children, and the elderly.
Although a three-day long festival, many festivities go on for a week or more. People believe that what they do during Tet will determine their fate for the whole year, hence people always smile, behave nicely and forget the trouble of the past year, hoping for a better upcoming year.
Homage Senior Services’ Multicultural Senior Center has Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese groups who are already preparing for the Lunar New Year. If you would like to be part of these interactive and exciting celebrations, then look at the calendar on Page 5 to see when they are taking place.
Older adults interested in learning more about the Multicultural Senior Center can go to www.homage.org or call 425-290-1268
While every person, community and group celebrates the New Year differently, we all have one thing in common: A new year means a new beginning and 365 days of possibilities.
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