It’s Lunar New Year time again. Tomorrow, January 22nd/2023 marks the beginning of this year’s Chinese New Year celebrations. If you want to use the proper greetings with your Chinese friends here is what you need to say: “Gong hei fat choy” (恭喜发财) (Cantonese) Gong xi fài (Mandarin). This 15 day long celebration will end on February 5th with the Lantern Festival.
My friend and Book Designer, Kit Leung, made the above poster with these cute rabbits for his wife’s studio in China for Lunar New Year. I had been thinking of him and decided to send Lunar New Year greetings a few days ago. He responded almost immediately with greetings and the above image. It was when I saw this beautiful image he created that I decided to do a post to mark the Year of the Rabbit.
Since I was a small child, I’ve loved and been drawn to rabbits and even envisioned myself having one as a pet someday. According to the internet, this is what the “Year of the Rabbit means. “The rabbit is the fourth animal in the Chinese zodiac. In the Chinese culture, the rabbit is known to be the luckiest out of all the twelve animals. It symbolizes mercy, elegance, and beauty. People who are born in the year of the rabbit are calm and peaceful.“
Although I’m not born in the Year of the Rabbit, I aspire to be like people born in this year – calm and peaceful. I daresay that people all over the world need to be able to live in harmony and peace with one another. Perhaps, this New Year will move us more in this direction. Irregardless of background or culture, we always move into a new year with hope that the new year will bring all that is good for us and our loved ones, friends, and neighbours.
Lunar New Year has become a special and joyous time for me. For many years before my retirement, I worked at a school in the Chinatown area of Toronto. The children who attended were mainly Chinese. Many of them had parents who owned businesses in the Chinatown area. The families I was privileged to work with were very lovely, respectful, and kind people. As part of the Heritage Program, the children were taught both Mandarin and Cantonese as an adjunct to the regular program.
In celebration of Lunar New Year, the students put on a concert for the event. When I first went to work there, I was in awe of the musical calibre of the students there. The concert was magnificent. In addition, we had all sorts of activities that were related to Lunar New Year prior to its beginning and during the time it lasted. How I miss those celebrations!
I also had the wonderful opportunity to spend Lunar New Year in Hong Kong and China many years ago. It was a fun time to be present for the Festival and see first-hand all the decorations, floats for the big parade, and other cultural nuances that can only be experienced by being there. One of those was seeing the manager at the hotel where I was staying giving gifts to each member of the staff right outside the hotel and wishing each person a Happy Lunar New Year. I felt the joy and happiness they were all experiencing. “Culture opens the sense of beauty.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the greatest joys of my life has been the opportunity to meet people of different cultures both at home and abroad and to come to understand that we are more alike than unalike. This has certainly been the case with my work in Toronto’s Chinatown and my time in Hong Kong and China. Whether you’ve had the same experiences I’ve had or not, have a Happy Lunar New Year, Gong hei fat choy, Gong xi fài. May you have a peaceful, joyful, prosperous, and safe New Year.
