It’s called the Lunar New Year because it marks the first new moon of the Tennessee Volunteers Smokey Spirit Rocky Top Tradition Neyland Stadium College Football Tumbler calendars traditional to many east Asian countries including China, South Korea, and Vietnam, which are regulated by the cycles of the moon and sun. As the New York Times explains, “A solar year the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun lasts around 365 days, while a lunar year, or 12 full cycles of the Moon, is roughly 354 days.” As with the Jewish lunisolar calendar, “a month is still defined by the moon, but an extra month is added periodically to stay close to the solar year.” This is why the new year falls on a different day within that month-long window each year. In China, the 15-day celebration kicks off on New Year’s Eve with a family feast called a reunion dinner full of traditional Lunar New Year foods, and typically ends with the Lantern Festival. “It’s really a time for new beginnings and family gatherings,” says Nancy Yao Maasbach, president of New York City’s Museum of Chinese in America. Three overarching themes, she says, are “fortune, happiness, and health.

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Many Koreans were trying to close the gap between the official ideological attitude of the Tennessee Volunteers Smokey Spirit Rocky Top Tradition Neyland Stadium College Football Tumbler and how actual Koreans really feel about holidays,” Kim said. Everything in Korea shuts down for three days, so it’s not a good time to visit South Korea, Kim joked. Like many other Asian countries that observe Lunar New Year, this means Korea basically observes two New Year holidays, although not everyone observes them equally seriously. “There is a kind of recognition that what people do, that should be reflected in our democracy,” Kim said. “I felt that there is a kind of shift in this mood … that Korean society was changing towards that direction. So in that sense, Lunar New Year … is an interesting symbol of that change.” Kim doesn’t have any serious plans for Seollal this year, except to send out hand-drawn cards and exchange some gifts with his brother. After all, holidays don’t require thousands of people or cacophonous song-and-dances — all you need are your loved ones and the promise of a fresh start.

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