ACC displays culture for New Year

Americans celebrate the New Year by popping open a bottle of champagne and setting resolutions to lose weight or to do better in school.

People from China, on the other hand, prepare for the Lunar New Year or “Spring Festival” by making dumplings, visiting temple and celebrating a new moon.

In Bloomington the Lunar New Year celebration will be slightly different but with the same purpose. 

The Asian Culture Center will sponsor the “It’s the Year of the Tiger! Lunar New Year Celebration” Saturday at the Monroe County Public Library.

The event will include stories, performances, tiger-related crafts and snacks, as well as feature a traditional Chinese wedding and tea ceremony, said ACC Graduate Assistant Mai-Lin Poon.

“I think my goal is to educate people and bring awareness about the Lunar New Year and how it’s celebrated in various countries across Asia,” Poon said. “It’s good for kids to be a part of and also adults too. It helps people get a small taste of different culture.”

Brian Flaherty, academic specialist for the Center for Chinese Language Pedagogy, said the date of the celebration changes each year for the Chinese because it revolves around the lunar calendar, which is based on the different phases of the moon.

“On the traditional lunar calendar, the beginning of the month was the new moon, the middle was the full moon, and the new moon marked the next month,” Flaherty said.

He said the solar calendar, which the Chinese now use, differs from the lunar calendar because it keeps in sync with the seasons and the movement of the Earth around the sun.  

However, the Chinese refer back to the lunar calendar for the New Year celebration. Every New Year also represents one of the 12 animals featured on the Chinese Zodiac.

Although comparable to the Western world’s astrological signs, Flaherty said the systems are set up in differently.

The tiger is the animal associated with this year’s Lunar New Year. 

“One of the major differences, of course, is the Zodiac signs from the West are associated with the months,” he said. “In China, these animal signs are associated on different levels. What most people know is that every year is a single one of these animals.”

Flaherty explained the comprehensiveness of the Chinese Zodiac. He said the different animals, which function as metaphors for personalities and other circumstances, are also applied to months of the year and hours of the day.

“You could be born in the year of the tiger but born in the month of the horse,” Flaherty said. “Because there are 24 hours in a day, each two-hour period is a sign which corresponds with animal energies. Some people look at what time of day you were born as a more telling effect of your characteristics.”

IU’s East Asian Studies Center outreach coordinator Qiong Jiang said the Lunar New Year is celebrated from Singapore and Korea to New York City’s Chinatown. 

She said there are many elements and preparations for the celebration, such as Chinese papercuts – firecrackers to scare away the “Nien” monster – and tasting desserts.

She said, however, its ideals aren’t too different from other holidays.

“It’s just like Christmas in the States,” Jiang said. “It’s a time for family reunions, time for great food.”