By Khen Lim
Image Source: mozzarellispizzas.com
Chinese New Year is that one time in the world when the
Chinese diaspora celebrate in unison. It’s that one event that unites them as a
single race with a common reason to celebrate. Chinese New Year has endured
over four thousand years and remain the most celebrated of all annual
festivities in the world.
For the Chinese, New Year is a time-honoured tradition steeped
in thousands of years of understanding and acceptance but for Christians, the
complications are punctuated by the turn of paganism that transformed its
origins.
The history of the Chinese New Year apparently dates back to
around 2000BC in the era of the Han Dynasty. It was a date that, according to
Emperor Wu Di’s almanac, celebrated the first day of the lunar calendar. It was
also widely known as the ‘Spring Festival’ because this was the time of the
year when Chinese farmers prep their seeds and ready their farmlands for
planting.
None of these were performed with any religious overtones. It
was simply a farming-based festival but it was also the one time in the year
when the farming populace would gather together and celebrate as they welcome a
time of hope.
As an event, it was a rather big one for medieval China, which
was essentially an agrarian society but it was also far simpler and showed no
signs of material concerns. This was an event that brought the people together
in a tradition to celebrate better opportunities for the future generation.
That simple tradition appears lost today because for some reason, pagan values
crept in and wound themselves tightly around every subsequent Chinese New Year
celebration.
Sadly today’s Chinese New Year celebrations show scant traces
of its agrarian roots but then, almost every other New Year event is similarly
tainted. Around the same time that the Chinese Spring Festival took root for
the first time, the Mesopotamians were starting theirs. In Babylonia, the Akitu
(New Year) celebrated the welcoming of the new moon following the spring equinox
in mid-March. Assyrians were celebrating theirs closer to the autumn equinox,
which was around mid-September.
In the Pharaoh days of Egypt around 2773BC, New Year fell on
the heliacal ascendancy of Sirius when the Nile would be flooded, signalling
the end of the summer solstice. Similar such events were also practised by the
ancient Celts, Greeks, Macedonians, Persians and Phoenicians.
Image Source: britannica.com
Ancient Romans, as another example, celebrated their New Year
by gifting one another a form of branch from allegedly ‘holy’ trees. Eventually
this was replaced by gold-covered nuts or coins that displayed the figure of
Janus. Janus was the Roman’s god of ‘entrances’ and ‘beginnings’ and as such,
it was his name that provided the basis for the naming of the month of January.
It is not difficult at all to tie in New Year celebrations
with the ancient observances of equinoxes and solstices with a few gods thrown
in here and there for good measure but the dates themselves do invite a closer
examination because according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the ancient
Roman republican calendar supposedly began on March 1. However after 153BC,
that got changed to January 1. While we know the reason for that, much of
medieval Christian Europe was, on the other hand, celebrating their New Year on
March 25 simply because the Roman Catholic Church had deemed this date to be
the beginning of Creation as they saw it and therefore a pretty good time to
call it a New Year.
March 25 pegged its existence to a decision to call December
25 the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The separation between the two dates is
nine months, the period of gestation from conception to birth.
In other words, put simply, the Roman Catholics saw March 25
as the date when Jesus was immaculately conceived, leading to that day being
termed the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. From that point thereon,
the world understood March 25 as the day in honour of Christ’s earthly
beginnings and nothing changed until the calendar reform of 1752 when it
appeared that this idea was discarded.
Even as we view this abridged history of the roots of New Year
origins, it is not difficult to understand that it wasn’t only the Chinese who
had their celebrations affixed to dubious underpinnings. After all if the Roman
Catholics can make a rash decision on Jesus’ ‘actual’ date of birth, surely the
Chinese can add to their Spring Festival with pagan embellishments too. We
don’t accept it but we should be able to understand its history.
But of course, that doesn’t mean the Chinese are right in
doing so. Jeremiah reminds us that man is often delusional:
“Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be terrified
by the signs of the heavens although the nations are terrified by them; for the
customs of the people are delusion; because it is wood cut from the forest, the
work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool.” (Jeremiah 10:2-3, NASB)
The gist of this is that God commands us not to go the way of
the nations, which is to worship anything or anyone other than the LORD
Himself.
Even Israel has problems with their interpretation of the New
Year. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, God told Moses and Aaron the following:
“This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to
be the first month of the year to you”
(Exodus 12:1, NASB)
and also,
“Observe the month of Adib and celebrate the Passover to the
LORD your God, for in the month of Adib the LORD your God brought you out of
Egypt by night.” (Exodus 12:2, NASB)
It would seem that God had in mind when the New Year would be
but the Jews had set forth something completely different. Instead they chose
Rosh Hashanah, which literally means ‘head of the year’ and is their annual
commemoration of the creation of the world, celebrated during the first two
days of Tishri, the seventh month in the Hebrew calendar or the equivalent of
somewhere between September and October.
Of course none of these make the Chinese New Year any clearer
to Chinese Christians. So should they celebrate or not celebrate it? And if
they do, are there anything to be particularly mindful of? Or should we
‘reinvent’ Chinese New Year?
For many decades, many Chinese Christians have been grappling
with the meaning of Chinese New Year. We are told that, after all, we are no
less a Chinese just because we are Christians. That is true but as Christians,
aren’t we supposed to be aware of what we’re celebrating?
From where we stand, there appears to be two points of view.
One casts a very critical but not untrue opinion. It is admittedly a little
harsh but sometimes truth is like that. The other viewpoint may well be the
middle path Christians can tread. It may sound a little permissive to some but
it could be the practical happy medium with nonetheless a biblical perspective.
In the end, remember that no matter the solution, God must remain in the
picture.
Let’s explore what these standpoints are.
The Critical Harsh Perspective
Most perspectives from the Old Testament tend to be a bit on
the brutal side but often, there is a reason why; because the Israelites were a
complete bunch of stiff-necked people, God’s actions were seen to be harsh.
Time and again, the Israelites buckled under paganism, forgetting God along the
way, faced the repercussions, repented and sought deliverance. Then they were
delivered but the repentance never lasted long enough and before we knew it,
the whole cycle would be repeated.
Those looking for easy answers won’t find many in the Old
Testament. We can therefore just as easily throw verses from this part of the
Bible at the Chinese New Year problem and they would stick. Consider Leviticus
18 where verses 3 and 24-30 all provide a feisty argument against paganism. We
can also dig into Psalm 106 where there are verses 7, 13-14, 19-22, 24-25 and
28-29 that all highlight how early lessons of Israel were lost on the newer
generation. In the process, paganism took root again in replacing God.
In Deuteronomy 7, verses 1-3, 4-5 and 16 tells us how God
commanded His people to completely destroy the pagans, not leaving any traces
remaining and forbidding His people from intermarrying. There was to be no pity
spared for those who worship anyone else but God. Verses 34-39 and 40-46 from
Psalm 106 lay proof to the unrepentant nature of the Israelites. Despite God’s
instructions, His people rebelled as if to want God’s wrath. The result was the
catastrophic cycle of events from idolatry to retribution and then repentance
followed by deliverance.
The cycle, as we know, did not last and Jeremiah 3:6-11 tells
us God’s last straw as He ran out of patience. 2 Kings 17, 24 and 25 then
relates Israel’s misery as God allowed the Assyrians – and then later, the
Babylonians – to run them over.
All of these are very severe and serious readings from the
Bible. It shows a God who has little time for those with pagan leanings. And He
has reason to be upset because all of these took place after He had Moses declaring the Ten Commandments in which already
the first two revealed God’s abhorrence of worship of false gods.
Our recent coverage of the first two Commandments describe in
far greater depth about the false gods and their relevance to modern society in
as much the same way as they can be applied to the 4,000-year-old Chinese New
Year.
Let’s look at some of the leading features of Chinese New Year
and attempt to understand their pagan significances:
1 Cleaning the house before Chinese New
Year and then stashing the brooms away
Image Source: bcliving.ca
I remember when I was a kid, I thought I would impress my mom if I took out the broom and sweep the lounge floor on the first day of Chinese New Year…only to have my mom in fits of panic, scurrying towards me to snatch the broom away. Since it was Chinese New Year, I received nothing more than a little tut-tut but that lesson stayed in me for a long time.
We’re told never to sweep away all the ‘good fortune’ in the
coming year. Everything is to be new for a brand new year including the clothes
we wear. Strictly no old rags, the tradition says and so in the run-up to
Chinese New Year, every Chinese would be frantically buying new fancy clothes
for the whole family. And not just clothes; they are to be as ‘colourful’ as
possible.
Drab blacks and greys are out of the question. Mournful
colours bring bad luck and usher in bad vibes. And so we’re reminded that, the
more colourful, the more auspicious and the more hopeful the incoming year
would be.
2 Putting up auspicious characters and
icons in and around the house
Image Source: gochina.about.com
Single character ornaments like ‘chun’ (spring) and ‘fu’ (luck) are popularly displayed but be not surprised to see them also deliberately hung upside-down. This is because the Chinese pronunciation for ‘upside-down’ (‘dao’) sounds uncannily similar to the word for ‘arrival’ (‘dao’). Therefore an upside-down ‘fu’ character is taken to mean the ‘arrival of good fortune’ or the ushering of prosperity.
Chinese superstition is very much centred on how things sound
when spoken. They may not be the same word but if the sound is near-identical
enough, it could work to our advantage.
Therefore a car registered with the number ‘1138’ would be
infinitely preferable to ‘5354’ because the former sounds like ‘alive and
prosperous everyday’ as opposed to the latter, which could translate to
‘neither alive nor dead.’ Hence registration numbers with as many figure ‘8’ as
possible (eg 8888) could cost the car owner a lot more than his very own car!
And so it should not be surprising to then see paper
pineapples hung around as well. Playing on the pronunciation, ‘pineapple’ in
Chinese is ‘wong lai,’ which is near
enough to ‘the arrival of prosperity.’ Often too, these paper pineapples are
hung upside down to further bolster the superstitious effect.
3 Offering of foods and flowers to dead
ancestors
Image Source: nationsonline.org
This Taoist tradition has somehow over the centuries found its way into Chinese New Year. For Taoist Chinese, filial piety does not end even when the family member passes away.
And therefore on the occasion of the New Year, families are to
pay their solemn respects by offering not only incense (joss) sticks but also foods
and flowers on altars prepared for just such an occasion. Family members
familiarise themselves with the deceased’s favourite foods and make sure that
they are on the altar for him/her to consume.
4 Incense offerings to the so-called god
of wealth
Image Source: news.xinhuanet.com
Infamously called the ‘choy sun,’ the god of wealth (or prosperity) is a much sought-after deity in the Chinese tradition for very obvious reasons – money – and so it is unsurprising that incense offerings are par for the course.
Thousands of devotees pray to this pagan deity when ushering
in the Chinese New Year and they don’t only do this at home but make ritual
visits to temples so that they can be seen to do it in grand style. Chinese
believe that the grander their efforts, the more wealth they will receive from
this false god.
In many places – including restaurants – you will be able to
see statues of various sizes of this god of wealth. These are displayed with
brazen pride.
5 Visual, cultural and traditional
importance of the mandarin orange
Image Source: bookmarqc.com
In the strictest literal sense, there is nothing particular or special about the oranges. For the Chinese however, it has to be a specific type of orange – the mandarin orange – only because these are called ‘gum’ in Chinese while a conventional orange is referred to as ‘chung.’
Contrary to the ‘mundane’ orange, the pronunciation of the
word for mandarin orange is, again, a facsimile for the word ‘gold.’ Gold of
course has its highly valued material connotations and therefore it is a pertinent
part of tradition to gift one another mandarin oranges whenever we go visiting.
It would be a cultural no-no to front up at anyone’s home during this
auspicious event without offering any of such fruit.
And remember it doesn’t matter if the Australian rockmelon is
more expensive. The Chinese won’t care for that – it’s the ‘gum’ and its connotative gold that they
are more interested in.
6 Doing things in pairs
Image Source: trekearth.com
The Chinese have a preference for even but not odd numbers. I personally don’t know why and I’m not sure if I want to know. However the fact remains true.
Therefore whenever mandarin oranges are to be gifted, one must
do so in even amounts; perhaps two or four or six but never in threes or fives
or whatever odd numbers. The Chinese view odd numbers not just as an oddity but
more worrisomely, as a reflection of ill omens associated with unhappy events.
As you can see, if you’re newly married into a Chinese family,
you’ll want to spend a little time getting into the little details before you
go around upsetting everyone!
7 Predominance of the colour red
Image Source: benjaaquila.com
No, it has nothing to do with communism. Red has long been a traditional iconic Chinese thing; certainly well before the Maoist regime took control. And it seems that the redder, the better.
In the Chinese tradition, red signifies not just life but
happiness and with it, prosperity and plenty of good fortune. In contrast,
Chinese New Year is not the best time to wear black no matter how fashionable
you may think you feel about the colour. Unlike red, the Chinese associate
black with doom gloom and death.
This is why you see a sea of red for Chinese New Year.
Everything is red – the lanterns, the lion and dragon dances, costumes,
dresses, the traditional red packets (see next point), all forms of cloths and
decorative items including the firecrackers (see point 13 further down).
8 The exchange of customary red packets
Image Source: english.visitbeijing.com.cn
Called ‘hoong pau’ (or ‘ang pow’), these are pocketable paper packets that the Chinese use to slip in some money to be customarily given to those who are unmarried. The tradition is so widespread that virtually every commercial institution including all banks and departmental stores give them away free to customers.
In the strictest sense of the tradition, these red packets are
basically meant for kids but that doesn’t mean unmarried adults are excluded
and many would likely be too embarrassed to be receiving them.
The giving of ‘hoong pau’
is an act of sharing or giving good fortune and well wishes from the giver to
the receiver. In that sense, therefore, the amount of money stashed inside the
packet is immaterial. But it isn’t.
The heft of the ‘hoong
pau’ has become increasingly a talking point. Changing lifestyles,
brinkmanship and bragging rights have also fuelled the upward trend where the ‘hoong pau’ haul is becoming a child’s
preoccupying self-interest during Chinese New Year. In other words, kids may
end up perceiving the festive season as nothing but their best opportunity to
‘score’ as many red packets as possible.
And you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that
as a result, materialism overtones are inescapable.
9 Homecoming dinner for New Year’s Eve
Image Source: english.cri.cn
The Chinese calls it, in Cantonese, ‘tuen yuen farn,’ which means ‘reunion dinner.’ And for all intents and purposes, this is a very important preamble to the Chinese New Year.
For a Western equivalent, the closest is Thanksgiving Day,
which is precedent to Christmas. However while it takes place on the fourth
Thursday of November and is celebrated in a few countries (other than America),
the Chinese homecoming event basically focuses only on the dinner part of the
day and is a traditional mainstay regardless of where they are throughout the
world.
The homecoming dinner falls on the night of New Year’s Eve,
which happens to be the thirtieth day of the final month of the present year,
which is why, in Chinese, we refer to that day as “neen sum supp mun.”
Family members from far-flung places gather at their ancestral
homes to have a meal together with their parents and elders. For many such
families, this may be the only time they get to assemble together and chat.
This is true when family members are spread across not just other states within
the country but in other parts of the world.
The significance of this dinner is such that it is held at
home and not in any glitzy restaurant and secondly, there is much to eat, which
means that cooking and preparation begin fairly early in the day. And because
of this, Chinese New Year’s Eve is a day where families are rarely found
anywhere else but in their own homes.
It is also the best occasion (and opportunity) to set aside
any sibling rivalries and indifferences for the sake of family unity and honour
to their parents and grandparents.
10 The ushering of the new animal sign
Image Source: yusgardenglenellyn.wordpress.com
2015 is supposedly the Year of the Goat. Last year the Horse took the honours and before that, it was the turn of the Snake. All in all, the Chinese preoccupy themselves with twelve specific animals that take their turns to run the rule and exert their influence.
The twelve animals appear to have their origins
in 2637BC with the semi-mythical so-called Yellow Emperor or if you hear it
differently, it could be the same twelve that had come to bid Buddha farewell prior
to him leaving Earth. Whatever the fairy tale, these twelve have persisted,
becoming an endearing Chinese tradition that is also dangerous to Christians.
These twelve animals form the crux of Chinese New Year’s
astrological zodiacs and in so doing, two things become prominent in the life
of an unbelieving Chinese.
Firstly these animals dictate the person’s year of birth in ways
similar to the Western version. Being born under the influence of a particular
animal means inheriting or acquiring a specific set of characteristics and a unique
sense of influence over his behaviour, temperament and even skill set.
Secondly when a person enters a year in which he shares the
same animal influence, the probability is that he gets to enjoy very favourable
terms. You could say that he’ll have a rather ‘good’ year then. Therefore if
you’re a bit of a goat, 2015 might well be ‘your’ year then!
11 Traditional Chinese New Year greeting
Image Source: networkedblogs.com
One of the most visible aspects of Chinese New Year is the traditional cry, ‘Gong Xi Fa Cai’ (or ‘Kong Hee Fatt Choy’ in a different dialect), which means, ‘wishing you great prosperity.’ The focus on wealth is unmistakable and it’s a common calling among Chinese all over the world, it seems.
Many Chinese Christians are particularly concerned with this
point – the material preoccupation of the greeting underscores a lack of
real interest over spiritual well-being. It is hard to convince anyone otherwise
because it is true. The link to prosperity means an invariable connection and
devotion to the god of wealth or good fortune. And that’s not too good.
Having said that, it’s not a simple matter of turning up for
Chinese New Year and simply refusing to greet anyone. If we did that, we’d be
(understandably) termed rude or insolent or insensitive. To avoid this greeting
would also be to turn a cold shoulder against a tradition that has stood with
the Chinese for thousands of years.
In other words it’s not a simple position to be in for Chinese
Christians.
12 The New Year Cake
Image Source: says.com
Called the ‘neen gao’ or ‘nian gao’ (meaning ‘New Year Cake’), this is a very sweet delicacy that is made available only on this occasion every year.
Made from glutinous rice pounded into a paste mixed with
coconut milk, plenty of sugar and corn oil, it is then moulded into a circular
shape with a flat top. For the Malaysian version, its sides are covered with
strips of banana leaves.
Before we get too caught up with how delicious it is, a study
of its name is useful. Contrary to popular wisdom, ‘nian gao’ takes its root meaning differently. While the homonym
suggests ‘higher year,’ the Chinese word ‘nian’
actually means ‘sticky’ but audibly, it sounds like ‘year.’ The word ‘gao’ means ‘cake’ but it sounds close to
‘high’ or ‘tall.’
Therefore to eat a ‘nian
gao’ is to symbolically raise oneself taller for every incoming year. In
modern times, this is taken to mean getting increasingly more prosperous. At the
same time, the sticky nature of the ‘nian
gao’ is said to be deliberate. When offered to the ‘kitchen god,’ the
strategy is to render his mouth stuck (assuming he is stupid enough to get
tricked every year, that is) long enough that he cannot slur one’s family
before the so-called Jade Emperor but sweet enough to retain pleasant memories
on his return to heaven on this auspicious day.
13 Burning of firecrackers and sparklers
Image Source: qingdaochinaguide.com
This longstanding tradition has been a problematic one for modern society. For many years now in Malaysia, it has been illegal to set off firecrackers and for good reasons. It’s not only anti-social with all that non-stop noise but it’s been notoriously well known to be injurious and sometimes, deadly.
Other than Malaysia, other countries with similar bans in place include
Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Australia and partially in Taiwan,
mainland China and America.
But as we know, banning it merely means people resort to
illegal ways to source and sell them. As a result contraband stuff have been trickling
through porous borders with Thailand where they make their way to flea markets
at night to be popularly sold to large clamouring crowds.
Despite the warnings – and the ban, no less – every Chinese
New Year for the entire fourteen days (and beyond), the sound of firecrackers
reverberate well into the night and the early hours of the morning. Those who
are brazen enough burn them in broad daylight. Light sleepers, be aware.
The Chinese believes that the more noise one makes, the more
effectively he wards off evil spirits. In particular they are talking about the
so-called evil monster by the name of ‘nian’ but I know very little beyond just
that bit.
Image Source: globaltimes.cn
The burning of firecrackers is said to have originated from
ancient times where there once lived a monster that goes by the name ‘nian’ (which also sounds awfully close
to the Chinese word for ‘year’). It is said that every springtime, the ‘nian’ would appear out of nowhere to
devour villagers and bring havoc and destruction to homes and farmlands far and
wide.
Then one year the farmers had innocently begun to burn bamboo
just so they could keep warm but when the ‘nian’
came visiting with destruction in mind, the noise coming from the crackling
bamboos was frightening enough that the monster backtracked and aborted its
plan. Over time and with the Chinese’ invention of gun powder, bamboo burning
was replaced by firecrackers to maintain the same means of defence.
We laugh at such stories, belittling their significance but we
cannot really underestimate the effects of such tales making their way into the
hearts and minds of especially young unbelievers. If an unbeliever can accept the burning of
effigies of maids, servants, cars and palaces so that their dead ancestors can
then receive and enjoy such material gains in heaven, it shouldn’t be surprising
that they will buy into such a tale.
14 The ominous lion and dragon dances
Image Source: news.xinhuanet.com
Like the firecrackers, the exceptional visual spectacle of any Chinese New Year is to witness the lion and dragon dances. These are traditional dances that are unique to the Chinese but they hold significant symbolisms as well.
It is noteworthy to differentiate the both as they are
dissimilar. While the lion dance requires two cloaked dancers to operate, the
far longer train of the dragon dance is dependent on many more whose faces may,
from time to time, be entirely visible as the dragon itself is held up by
poles from end to end.
There is a deep and rich history behind these dances but when
applied to the Chinese New Year, the significances are different. As the lion
comes visiting Chinese homes and shops, they carry out a custom called ‘cai qing’ (or ‘plucking the greens’)
where it basically lunges for offerings of vegetables such as balls of lettuce
that are auspiciously tied to the ‘hoong
pau.’ Lion dances are accepted as a means of ushering good luck and fortune
be it for the home or the business.
Image Source: publicwallpapers.org
While the lion dances are little more generic, dragon dances
are specifically and uniquely a Chinese New Year feature. With the mythical
dragon central to not only Chinese folklore but as an undeniable symbol of
China, it commands authority to which people are known to submit to. Chinese
dragons are said to bring good fortune and the lengthier the dragon dance, the
greater the prosperity it brings to the community.
Because of the remarkable importance of the dragon to Chinese
culture, it also has an unmistakable cachet in the life and culture of every
Chinese community. The dragon somehow possesses inequitably dominant influence
over the Chinese, offering great power (control), dignity (status), fertility
(virility), wisdom (cunning) and auspiciousness. Just as it imposes itself in a
frightening and bold manner, it is also the very statement of imperialism and
authoritative governing power.
For the Chinese Christian, there is as much of a drawcard as
it can also be drawbacks. There is no doubt they are entertaining and
spectacular to watch but they carry meanings and purposes that are
unacceptable. After all, no Christian worth his salt can ever embrace the
traditional ritual of a lion dance being capable of warding off ‘bad omens.’
These dances are said to originate from Buddhist temples where
martial art clans developed them into the tradition that they are today. By and
large, these dances are religious in nature.
15 Superstitious Tripe
Image Source: chinahighlights.com
The entire Chinese New Year is punctuated from one end to the other by superstitious elements. And all of them revolve around the preoccupation against ‘bad luck’ and the pursuit of material prosperity.
While we’ve come across many in the previous sections, the ones mentioned in the article entitled, ‘Top
10 Chinese New Year Superstitions’ are worth checking out:
-
No sweeping and cleaning
-
Full home spring cleaning
-
Buy books early (the
Chinese word for book is ‘suee,’
which sounds the same as ‘to lose’) because bookstores and book rooms are all
closed for the festive season
-
Don’t buy shoes (the
Chinese word for shoes is ‘hye,’
which sounds like ‘rough’) as you might be in for a rough time
-
Pay up your debts
beforehand (the Chinese believe it’s not auspiciously good to start the year
owing others)
-
No talks of death or dying
or ghosts (very inauspicious to the Chinese; the ultimate bad omen)
-
Wear red no matter what
(while rainbow colours are good, red still rules)
-
Eat sweets (when you do,
the Chinese believe you’ll have a sweet year)
-
Open the windows and let
the fresh air in (while at the same time, you are said to let in good luck as
well)
-
Put away sharp pointed
objects (cutting things is to cut out good luck; so don’t go visiting
hairdressers during then)
To read the original article, click here.
Watch out for tomorrow's Part Two.
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