Chinese New Year~

~Chinese New Year~

Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is sometimes called the Lunar New Year, especially by people outside China. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first lunar month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year's Eve is known as Chúxī (除夕, abbr. for 年除夕 Niánchúxī, Chúxì in Taiwan). It literally means "Year-pass Eve".

Celebrated in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the new year celebrations of its geographic neighbours, as well as cultures with whom the Chinese have had extensive interaction.^{[citation needed]} These include Aboriginal Taiwanese people, Koreans, Mongolians, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Vietnamese, and formerly the Japanese before 1873. In Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and other countries or regions with significant Han Chinese populations, Chinese New Year is also celebrated, and has, to varying degrees, become part of the traditional culture of these countries. In Canada, although Chinese New Year is not an official holiday, many ethnic Chinese hold large celebrations and Canada Post issues New Year's themed stamps in domestic and international rates.

Although the Chinese calendar traditionally did not use continuously numbered years, its years are now often numbered from the reign of Huangdi outside China. But at least three different years numbered 1 are now used by various writers, causing the year beginning in 2008 to be 4706, 4705, or 4645.^[2]

The 2009 date for Chinese New Year is January 26.

~HOHOHO~

The lunisolar Chinese calendar determines Chinese New Year dates. The calendar is also used in countries that have adopted or have been influenced by Han culture (notably the Koreans, Japanese and Vietnamese) and may have a common ancestry with the similar New Years festivals outside East Asia (such as Iran, and historically, the Bulgars lands).

In the Gregorian calendar, Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year, a date between January 21 and February 20. This means that the holiday usually falls on the second (very rarely third) new moon after the winter solstice. In traditional Chinese Culture, lichun is a solar term marking the start of spring, which occurs about February 4.

The dates for Chinese New Year from 1996 to 2019 (in the Gregorian calendar) are at the left, along with the year's presiding animal zodiac and its earthly branch. The names of the earthly branches have no English counterparts and are not the Chinese translations of the animals. Alongside the 12-year cycle of the animal zodiac there is a 10-year cycle of heavenly stems. Each of the ten heavenly stems is associated with one of the five elements of Chinese astrology, namely: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. The elements are rotated every two years while a yin and yang association alternates every year. The elements are thus distinguished: Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, etc. These produce a combined cycle that repeats every 60 years. For example, the year of the Yang Fire Rat occurred in 1936 and in 1996, 60 years apart.

Many confuse their Chinese birth-year with their Gregorian birth-year. As the Chinese New Year starts in late January to mid-February, the Chinese year dates from January 1 until that day in the new Gregorian year remain unchanged from the previous Gregorian year. For example, the 1989 year of the snake began on February 6, 1989. The year 1990 is considered by some people to be the year of the horse. However, the 1989 year of the snake officially ended on January 26, 1990. This means that anyone born from January 1 to January 25, 1990 was actually born in the year of the snake rather than the year of the horse. Many online Chinese Sign calculators do not account for the non-alignment of the two calendars, using Gregorian-calendar years rather than official Chinese New Year dates.

~Nice tree~

One scheme of continuously numbered Chinese-calendar years assigns 4706 to the year beginning January 26, 2009, but this is not universally accepted; the calendar is traditionally cyclical, not continuously numbered.

Animal	Branch	Dates
鼠 Rat	子 Zi	February 19, 1996	February 7, 2008
牛 Ox	丑 Chou	February 7, 1997	January 26, 2009
虎 Tiger	寅 Yin	January 28, 1998	February 14, 2010
兔 Rabbit	卯 Mao	February 16, 1999	February 3, 2011
龍 Dragon	辰 Chen	February 5, 2000	January 23, 2012
蛇 Snake	巳 Si	January 24, 2001	February 10, 2013
馬 Horse	午 Wu	February 12, 2002	January 31, 2014
羊 Sheep	未 Wei	February 1, 2003	February 19, 2015
猴 Monkey	申 Shen	January 22, 2004	February 8, 2016
雞 Rooster	酉 You	February 9, 2005	January 28, 2017
狗 Dog	戌 Xu	January 29, 2006	February 16, 2018
豬 Pig	亥 Hai	February 18, 2007	February 5, 2019

~Wikipedia~

Yes! Chinese New year is jus around the corner! Which means, get healthier now guys cause there'll be loads of COOOOOKKKKKIIIIEEESSSSS (Pray I get FAT and NOT SICK XD). This is the time when we reunited and forgive all the things that happened before. And TIME to wear new clothes... weeeeE~ Anyways... Enjoy~ I nearly forgot... Bak kua... One of the Best food ever~ ~S.M.~