Who is pissed about people calling it "Chinese New Year" instead of "Lunar New Year" ?

I don't really care which they call it, just like I don't care if people say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays.

I'm chinese...

not really pissed but I think its a little inaccurate to be blanket calling all of it chinese new year.

when in rome do roman things ( ik that's not the real quote but I forgot the original)

-- edit: so when in korea, call it seollal, when talking to someone, call it according to their culture / use the culture - agnostic terms

its disrespectful to call something from one culture as something from another culture. sure its all celebrated similarly on similar days but its not the same, not by a long shot.

Depends on where u are from. If u are in Korea u say the Korean holiday, China Chinese holiday and vietnam the Vietnamese holiday. Overseas would call what they best associate it with, as one can’t expect others who are not from ur culture to say lunar new year.

That's a weird take coming from a Belgian. In France, everyone calls it the "Chinese New Year", in news, press and stuff. I don't think I ever head anyone say Lunar New Year.

No one in Asia Pacific calls on Chinese New Year.

I dont live in those countries so I cant speak for anybody

here we call it chinese new year (south america) and it may have been wrong all along, there is always room to grow and fix it

I'm not angry, so I wouldn't call myself pissed.

I am disappointed. But many people pick and choose when to be sensitive at their own convenience-even me.

i've never heard it called lunar new year tbh. and i only know it's "chinese new year" bc i live with chinese people.

Doesn't worry me either way as I don't celebrate it.

i am not korean nor asian

for me and in my country it is called Chinese New year like since forever

Like I said in the other thread, I grew up in a place where people and press call it "Chinese New Year" (Brazil), but I found out the current term when I got into K-pop and now I know.

I don't feel dissapointed, cause I'm not asian, so I don't have strong feelings towards the holiday, but I do understand people who prefers If It's called Lunar New Year and I don't dismiss.

I get why people are mad because for a long time it was called Chinese New Year (before the anti-China media really kicked off). But there's also Vietnamese New Year and Korean New Year which while based on the ancient Chinese lunisolar calendar, are their own cultural celebrations. So to me it's fine calling it Lunar New Year, it seems like a acceptable inclusive way of celebrating all for the Asian diaspora. Kinda like happy holidays is used for Christmas and Hanukkah. Fun fact in China it's called the Spring Festival!

Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival), Seollal, etc. are celebrated based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Most people in the world are probably more familiar with the Chinese celebrations, hence why they sometimes get lumped together which is of course not good and I fully understand that you could feel that your culture is kind of erased there. However, I think that this push of trying to replace "Chinese" with "Lunar" is equally disrespectful and has little to do with the desire to respect other cultures but just a part of the general anti-Chinese narratives. Why? Because it instead erases all people who follow different lunisolar calendars. For example, Tsagaan Sar (Mongolian New Year) is celebrated by Mongolian and some Turkic (e.g. Tuvans) ethnicities, the date is calculated using a Mongolian lunisolar calendar. Hence "LNY" is not at all more inclusive than the CNY in my opinion, because it essentially labels one celebration as THE LNY while others are kind of sidelined, just like now.

I don't know if there is some other name to the Chinese lunisolar calendar, so maybe it should be used instead e.g. "X Lunar New Year".

like anything it gets a bit complicated once u dig further in.

The chinese in CHINA call it LUNAR NEW YEARS.

the term "chinese new year" probably started because of the chinese diaspora in various english speaking countries couldnt translate or convey lunar new years properly to the locals as illustrated by this imaginary scenario:

local man in an english speaking country at the turn of the 19th/20th century:

hey.. what's going on here? what's with all the festivals?

Chinese Diaspora member - "it's our holiday , moon new year"

local - " moon new year?"

CDM -" yes , moon"

local - " why moon? don't you have calendars? how can the moon give you a new year?"

CDM -" never mind, it's our most valued holiday. its' chinese culture

local - "oh ok, so it's chinese new year"

CDM - "yes, we'll go with that, it's chinese new year"

because the english speaking locals could obviously never understand when the chinese would say 農曆新年.

in Singapore , where english is the main de facto language, with 3/4th of the residents being ethnic chinese, it's officially called Chinese new years - where it has a different connotation since it's a holiday celebrated by the majority - but the pple who speak mandarin or other various chinese dialect, still call it lunar new years.

so you can't force the singaporeans to use "lunar new year" when it has ingrained in their culture as "chinese new year"

There is no malice or any sinister agenda with the origin of using "chinese new year" in the english speaking world - rather than giving any curious locals with a 1/2 day lecture about the lunar calender, the history, why certain foods are produced etc, it was just easier to convey - chinese new year - oh it's chinese culture, i get it, let's enjoy the festival.

and the term may have evolved to give chinese diaspora in various countries a sense of cultural identity, so shouldn't be taken away.

THAT being said, not all asians or pple who celebrate lunar new year ARE CHINESE. I doubt the korean or vietnamese diaspora in western countries appreciated their new years was being called "chinese new years" when vietnam was being invaded by the ccp forces during the sino-vietnamese war, or Koreans during the Korean war when china aided North korea in a war that killed over 5 million koreans - and when they have different customs to celebrate it. - or tibetian, or mongolian etc.

So where there is a diverse cultural population such as Europe or the USA or AUSTRALIA, it seems the most appropriate term would be "lunar new year"; that being said, if you're chinese and you traditionally called it "chinese new year" , then that too is acceptable.

Danielle got in hot waters because she used "chinese new year" when she's not even chinese, who's working as a Kpop idol, and thought most of the english speaking world used "chinese new year".. because apparently most of Australia still uses "chinese" new year to refer to lunar new year.

it obviously was an over-reaction, the antis could've just brushed this off as "oh she grew up in australia and has no clue that she means lunar new years and not chinese.. cus she's obviously not chinese"...but we all know antis wont.

also this thread is a bit of an over reaction as well. nothin wrong with using chinese new year if you're chinese and if it's what u've been calling it for most of your life.

gets a bit problematic if you're NOT chinese and say "happy chinese new year" to any random asian you meeet on the street tho.- but i guess that would be problematic even if were chinese as well. u dont go walking about tellin random pple "happy chinese new year" on the street .. then why would u say it to random pple online?.. but i guess its more like a banner on line? idk.

Quote from 3best

Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival), Seollal, etc. are celebrated based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Most people in the world are probably more familiar with the Chinese celebrations, hence why they sometimes get lumped together which is of course not good. However, I think that this new push of trying to replace "Chinese" with "Lunar" is equally disrespectful and has little to do with the desire to respect other cultures but just a part of the general anti-Chinese narratives. Why? Because it erases all people who follow different lunisolar calendars. For example, Tsagaan Sar (Mongolian New Year) is celebrated by Mongolian and some Turkic (e.g. Tuvans) ethnicities, the date is calculated using a Mongolian lunisolar calendar. This "LNY" is not at all more inclusive than the CNY.

Looked it up and today is still Saturday January 21 where I am, so it is still New Year on the Mongolian calendar. Both the Chinese and Mongolian lunisolar calendars calculate NY based on the second new moon after the winter solstice. I guess the Chinese calendar uses the day after the second new moon and the Mongolian calendar uses the day of the new moon. The new moon "appears" on January 21 not 22.

People have a right to be angry about it being called Chinese new year...

What I have a problem with is people getting so worked up over it that it turns into straight up hatred of foreigners.

Quote from 0ppar

No one in Asia Pacific calls on Chinese New Year.

Thailand does. We even have a huge celebration here and Chinese tourists are all over probably bc there are so many Chinese mixed population

Quote from Poetry

Looked it up and today is still Saturday January 21 where I am, so it is still New Year on the Mongolian calendar. Both the Chinese and Mongolian lunisolar calendars calculate NY based on the second new moon after the winter solstice. I guess the Chinese calendar uses the day after the second new moon and the Mongolian calendar uses the day of the new moon. The new moon "appears" on January 21 not 22.

Mongolian New Year celebration is on 21 February this year, it is official and there are holidays on that day in Mongolia & even some provinces in other countries (e.g. Republic of Buryatia in Russia). Mongolian lunisolar year can last 13 months instead of usual 12 depending on the year to equalize the average year length with the solar calendar. Tibetan calendar also does this, although afaik it does not use the same calculation for Losar hence it does not coincide with the MNY most of the time.

lahel

It has nothing to do with english. I live in homogeneous white slavic country and we call it chinese new year because we know they celebrate it. We aren't familiar with other (south) east asian nations, i bet nobody even know they celebrate it as well.

It's always been Chinese new year. I heard the term lunar a few times on the news but people call it chinese

Quote from doesitneedsaying

lahel

It has nothing to do with english. I live in homogeneous white slavic country and we call it chinese new year because we know they celebrate it. We aren't familiar with other (south) east asian nations, i bet nobody even know they celebrate it as well.

It's always been Chinese new year. I heard the term lunar a few times on the news but people call it chinese

yes..... but that just means.... your country is not aware of other cultures.

also where did your country learn that the chinese celebrated lunar new year? did the person go to china and speak to them in chinese or slavic? and why did that person translate what the chinese call lunar new year to "chinese new year"?

i'm betting their source for that info was from western countries where they called it 'chinese new year" where i explain how they got that term...

idk. it's your country, you try finding out

In Malaysia we call it Chinese New Year too. It’s one of the major holidays here

Quote from lahel

yes..... but that just means.... your country is not aware of other cultures.

also where did your country learn that the chinese celebrated lunar new year? did the person go to china and speak to them in chinese or slavic? and why did that person translate what the chinese call lunar new year to "chinese new year"?

i'm betting their source for that info was from western countries where they called it 'chinese new year" where i explain how they got that term...

idk. it's your country, you try finding out

It's called Chinese New Year in the West because it is through the Chinese communities residing in our countries, through their celebrations, that people got acquainted to this event. It's simple as that.

No joke I think the earliest I ever heard about "Lunar New Year" was in 2017 in Overwatch when the game had its first LNY themed event.

Quote from MissBehave

One of my coworkers recently dressed up as a "geisha" for Halloween and showed up in one of these

that's--

bruh---

Fxxk bro that's like not even the right look omg no research headazz in your workplace even a google image search will tell them otherwise omfg

Quote from lahel

yes..... but that just means.... your country is not aware of other cultures.

also where did your country learn that the chinese celebrated lunar new year? did the person go to china and speak to them in chinese or slavic? and why did that person translate what the chinese call lunar new year to "chinese new year"?

i'm betting their source for that info was from western countries where they called it 'chinese new year" where i explain how they got that term...

idk. it's your country, you try finding out

china has 1.4 billion people who is 4000 years old, why are you acting like it's a small country and we need western sources to get china related knowledge?

Also, luna or lunar means nothing in my language and we still use the word. My language has nothing in common with english apart of both being svo languages

Quote from MissBehave

Right? I was like 'the hell? And another coworker literally said "what does it matter? Nobody knows the difference anyway. It's fine."

So basically, her position was that since our area is full of non-Asians who think all East Asian cultures are the same, any misconceptions should never be mentioned much less cleared up. Just allow the ignorance to continue and perpetuate.

My nickname's gonna be shinbreaker tonight--

BOBBY??? GET THE SLEDGEHAMMERS WE GONNA TEACH SOME IDIOTS KINETICALLY TONIGHT

Edit: seriously though that's like saying ireland and britain are basically the same or the french and british are basically the same or some other problematic combo that's bound to enrage ppl... because clumping east asian countries together and saying its the same is some surefire way to get ppl offended.

Their qipao as a geisha costume is wrong country, wrong time, wrong culture-- I doubt they even know what a geisha is or does-- aghghghg

Most of the world won’t care if the day is called chinese new year bc it doesn’t affect them whatsoever, but it’s definitely rather a bit offensive when you come up to a korean or vietnamese and tell them happy chinese new year even if the intention is clearly not malicious lol but hey when has the minority been of more importance to the majority mass

Quote from doesitneedsaying

china has 1.4 billion people who is 4000 years old, why are you acting like it's a small country and we need western sources to get china related knowledge?

Also, luna or lunar means nothing in my language and we still use the word. My language has nothing in common with english apart of both being svo languages

?? oh, no.

i implied and thus acted like your country was ignorant, not that china was small. ..cus you admitted to it. so you're the one you should blame.

also Lunar can be translated to your language.

Quote from Alex_Murphy

It's called Chinese New Year in the West because it is through the Chinese communities residing in our countries, through their celebrations, that people got acquainted to this event. It's simple as that.

No joke I think the earliest I ever heard about "Lunar New Year" was in 2017 in Overwatch when the game had its first LNY themed event.

yes.. i went over this in my lengthy post prior to the post you quoted

I’m from the US and majority of the people here call it the Chinese New Year. Maybe because we have more of a Chinese population and exposure to Chinese culture than other countries.

Quote from MissBehave

Lol kinetic learning lol

Oh believe me, I've run into this all my life. People will be up in arms if you dare mix up English and Scottish or Spanish and Portuguese, but they are perfectly fine treating all of East Asia as "the same thing". You can see it when people are fine with non-Korean Asians being idols, but have an issue when it's an non-Asian.

damn which region of the world are you

I'm southern california btw.

Quote from MissBehave

Lol kinetic learning lol

Oh believe me, I've run into this all my life. People will be up in arms if you dare mix up English and Scottish or Spanish and Portuguese, but they are perfectly fine treating all of East Asia as "the same thing". You can see it when people are fine with non-Korean Asians being idols, but have an issue when it's an non-Asian.

That’s a really good point. There are so many distinctions like that in europe that non-europeans are made aware of, but there’s definitely a huge chunk of non-asians still viewing asia as “china and smaller chinas” lol and it extends to how the cultures are perceived elsewhere too