Happy Chinese New Year!
The Chinese New Year is also called the Spring Festival or Luna New Year.
The 2019 year of the Pig is predicted to be a particularly auspicious and lucky year. And with the zodiac sign of the pig representing diligence, kindness and generosity, people working on projects (like PhDs and other ventures) can look forward to some super positive changes in the next 12 months!
Hooray!
The Chinese fortune calendar combines solar, lunar and 60 Stem-Branch counting systems. The 60 Stem-Branch calendar uses the names of the Yin and Yang Five Elements (Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth) and 12 animals to rank the yearly sequences. The five elements are connected to five colors – White, Black, Green, Red, and Brown. So the new year uses an element, its color and the animal name to count the year. In this system, 2019 is the year of the Female Earth Pig – and given that brown is connected to the Earth it is a Brown Earth Pig Year.
February 2019 is also an especially fortuitous month.
February 2019 will only come once in a lifetime. This is because this year’s February has 4 Mondays, 4 Tuesdays, 4 Wednesdays, 4 Thursdays, 4 Fridays, 4 Saturdays and 4 Sundays.
This only happens once every 823 years!
The Chinese New Year is celebrated worldwide and this year, I was delighted to see this Irish bicycle-assisted celebration for Chinese New Year – Dublin’s Lazy Bike Tours Asian Flavours Event.
Asian Flavours on a Lazy Bike
Lazy Bike Tours offer three-hour electric bike tours that celebrates the Chinese New Year and highlights Dublin’s enduring connection to China. While on this guided tour, participants are given an informed account of Dublin’s Chinese migration and history whilst riding around Chinatown. As part of the tour, riders get to visit the Spring Festival Fair at the CHQ building and check out the market stalls. As a finale, the tour finishes up at a local Chinese restaurant to experience traditional new year cuisine and culture.
What a great way to start the Luna New Year … being out and about, happily social, interacting with community, learning about culture and having fun on two wheels – awesome!
However you celebrate Chinese New Year – I hope it’s also on two wheels!
恭喜发财，红包拿来 Gōngxǐ fācái!
February always has exactly 4 of all 7 days of the week, except in leap years. 3 out of every 4 years, not once in 823.
True Edward. I did a little more digging…and you are right- once every six years. One of the academics in my building sent this to all the PhDers. Just goes to show you need to check facts! Thanks for letting me know!