By Ly Nguyen, WLRN
Happy New Year!
Happy Chinese New Year. Image from dgreetings.com
Yes, I’m wishing you a happy New Year way past Jan. 1. This is the time of the year when millions of people are celebrating the start of the Year of the Horse. Families have cleaned and decorated their homes from top to bottom, altars have been constructed, special New Year’s meals have been cooked and consumed. Everybody is doing whatever they can to ward away evil spirits. Traditions run deep during these celebrations. But there is one tradition I want you to break: please take “Chinese” out of “Chinese New Year.”
Just because more than a billion Chinese citizens celebrate the Lunar New Year doesn’t make it exclusively their own. That’s right — it’s not “Chinese New Year,” it’s the Lunar New Year.
On the same day, Vietnamese people celebrate Tet and Koreans celebrate Seo naal. So what’s the big deal? You might ask. Who cares if it’s called “Chinese” New Year?
Well, I do.
By calling it “Chinese” New Year, it reinforces the ideology that Asians fall into two categories: Chinese or something else. Inherent in this ideology is the thought that being Chinese is superior to not being Chinese.
Read the full article by Ly Nguyen, WLRN
