Lunar New Year 2022

Tuesday, February 1 is the Lunar New Year/ Chinese New Year/ The Spring Festival for our students and families from the Chinese Community and a lot of East & South-East Asian communities.

Students and families will start celebrating from the eve before Lunar New Year’s Day ( this evening) , and it is the most important festival in China or for people of the Chinese descent. It will last for 6 to 15 days until the Lantern Festival, the day that marks the end of the Chinese New Year. Students will be attending family gatherings and festive events in celebration. Some families may not be able to attend events on Jan 31.

Also, Tuesday, February 15 is the Lantern Festival. Some families may not be able to attend events in the evening. This may result in students not having assignments or ready for tests on Wednesday.

This could be an opportunity for us to connect with our students willing to share their festivities and traditions with us and their peers in our classrooms. Thank you for all that you are doing to build a welcoming and enriching classroom environment for all our students!

-Dr. Kamath

I would also like to invite you to see the Chinese new year display that our amazing Chinese teacher, Zoe, organized in the library:

Tomorrow's celebration marks the celebration of the first day of the new year on the lunisolar calendar system that has its origins in China. However, this new year celebration is not only celebrated by Chinese people or people of Chinese descent in East and Southeast Asia. Because of the cultural influence of China historically in the greater East and Southeast Asian regions, many non-Chinese people have adopted the lunisolar calendar and have their own version of the Lunar New Years celebration such as the Vietnamese people, Korean, and Japanese. If you're interested in learning more about this history, this youtube video does a good job explaining the origins and difference. (The narrator does speak with a strong Malaysian English accent

In Vietnam, it's called Tết Nguyên Đán (Spring Festival/Lunar New Year), while in Korea it's called Seol-Nal (설날). I cannot speak on the Korean Lunar New Year celebration, however I would like to share a little bit about Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration.

Tết is a very important celebration in Vietnamese culture. In Vietnam, students and workers have the first three days off, and almost everything is closed/shut down. Tết has many shared cultural components to the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration, such as the importance of family and family gathering -- appreciating the family members that are still here and those that have passed. In traditional Vietnamese cultures, families would make and eat a special rice cake with meat and mung beans or banana and black beans, wrapped in banana leaves called Bánh chưng (the square shaped cake) and Bánh tét (the cylindrical shaped cake). The shape depends on the region -- square northerners, cylindrical -- southerners. These days, we just buy these cakes at the Vietnamese market because it takes 6+ hours just to cook it. 🙂

Here's are pictures of my kids in their traditional Vietnamese clothes, called an áo dài for the new year celebration.

If you are interested in learning more about Tết or experience a little of it, every year there's a big Tết celebration/festival at Seattle Center (https://www.tetinseattle.org/). Many groups within the local Vietnamese community here in the Greater Seattle area contribute to the event.

So, besides your Chinese students, your Vietnamese and Korean students may also celebrate a form of Lunar New Year tomorrow and for the next couple of days. If you would like to acknowledge this cultural celebration with your students, I would suggest saying Happy Lunar New Year instead of just Happy Chinese New Year. Historically, Asian Americans have been stereotyped as one monolith in the United States so just saying Happy Chinese New Year can perpetuate the stereotype of "All Asian people are Chinese".

Thank for taking a second to learn a little bit more. I appreciate everything you do to understand your students better. Let me know if you have any questions about my experience.

Ms. Thai-Hang Nguyen​​

Jumping in with a quick astronomy lesson on the topic! The Lunar New Year is based off a lunar calendar, which uses the cycle of the Moon to regulate traditions, events, and other important dates. Because the 12 lunar cycles (~354 days) are a bit short of a solar year (~365 days - the time it takes the Earth to complete an orbit around the Sun), events in the lunar calendar may shift throughout the seasons.

The Lunar New Year is a celebration that takes place at the Second New Moon after the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year) which falls on February 1 this year. If you would like more information about the history of lunar, solar, and lunisolar calendars, feel free to reach out! If you have any astronomy students, we learned about this in January so they can tell you all about it!

I have the following graphic on my Canvas Course letting students know they can ask for more time this week and wishing them a happy new year 😊 Many students have reached out in gratitude in years past as they celebrate because it gives them permission to prioritize time with their families in the coming weeks. It’s an easy way to let students know you care!

- Kristie Bennett