Xīnniánkuàilè

The title literally means, “Happy New Year!” But the greeting one normally hears in China, mostly from children, say, Gong xi fa cái! Hóng bao ná lái, “Congratulations and be prosperous; now give me a red envelope!” Red currencies are usually stuffed on red envelopes.

The Hangul phrase is Saehae bok mani badeuseyo, “Please receive a lot of luck in the New Year.” In Japan, it is Akemashite omedatou gozaimasu, “Congratulations on an opening/beginning year.” For Sinosphere, New Year’s greetings vary depending upon the audience and the occasion, formally at a party or informally around the family table, except when addressing elders. The Lunar New Year begins a 15-day Spring Festival when one stuffs oneself with dumplings.

Saipan was treated with the lion dance performed to drive out evil spirits. The lion leapt and bounced in various places around Saipan. It is the Year of the Monkey with the animal representing an optimistic outlook, an ambitious activity, and adventurous mission.

The lion dance stopped in various locations, launched from TSL plaza, ended at World Resort, weaving stops through the JP Center, the Hyatt Regency, I Love Saipan, Canton Restaurant, Majesty Restaurant, IT&E (Middle Road), Subway, Century Hotel, Micro Beach Hotel, Fiesta Resort, Sunleader, Duty Free Shop, Louis Vuitton, and Best Sunshine. T’was a tired lion at sunset.

A decided emphasis on the Lunar New Year is “newness,” the new moon being a primal symbol. In Asia, clearing one’s duties and obligations is high priority, the financial slate cleaned and assured to be stable, and indebtedness foreclosed. A new face is put on, new clothes worn, and what is called “forgiveness” in Christian terms before it took a moralistic meaning is applied. A debt is not forgotten nor what is unpaid erased, but the face stays in the social circle, though often, it is simply tolerated. One’s mienzi in China, mentsu in Japan, chemyeon in Korea, and mukha in ‘Pinas are reassessed.

We won’t say how we fared this year but my social face in certain places and meeting certain people will be veiled a while. But let us not get too deep into my failings!

It is the second half of the children’s Lunar New Year greetings that seems to reflect a universal phenomenon of “Give Me.” It is the notion, nay, a belief rooted in Egyptian skyward stance, a faith in the superstitious belief that an external entity is responsible for existence, and all one has to do is behave well and ask. The obeisance becomes a lifelong preoccupation. What starts as a privilege turns into an entitlement. I am not just referring to the American sense that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, makes existence all for my sake. I refer to the “Give Me” syndrome.

I do not know which stellar constellation the earth faces when we begin the first phase of the moon in its first month that marks solar and lunar New Years. The solar one, figured on the first day of spring when the earth’s northern hemisphere tilts back toward the equator that Iran determined to start its calendar on the vernal equinox.

The first day of spring used to start the Christian calendar as well until a Bishop of the Roman Church decided that a child thought to be born in the spring is suddenly born at the onset of winter at its solstice, which happens to be the Feast of Bacchus in the old Roman calendar. To counter the pagan ethos, Christmas replaced the old Bacchanalian orgy in the Roman baths. How convenient. To be factual was not important; the power of symbols was. It also messed up the notion of a solar calendar that began on the first day of spring. Gregory latter dubbed it anno domini.

The lunar New Year cosmologically is the midpoint between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, and this year, it is on Feb. 8 as the lion danced over fire cracking.

Saipan is in the equatorial belt, roughly between 23 degrees latitude north and 23 degrees latitude south. In a sense, we do not have seasons other than wet and dry. But many of the people who settled on our shores came from different reckonings of Mother Nature’s patterns. Why we have four seasons when the weather is all sun, even during monsoon rains, is due to an imposition of presiding Masters, first the Europeans, and later the Americans and Japanese, like it was at home.

Now comes the lunisolar calendar of Sinosphere. The Spring Festival starts on Lunar New Year, traditionally lasting for 15 days. It is also 30 days winter school vacation so students’ families reunite; recent urbanites return to visit left relations in countryside homes.

The 15-day Spring Festival that the Lunar New Year launches has cultural practices decided on the characteristic traits of animals (save the imaginal “dragon”) in the Chinese Zodiac, rather than on the sun’s elliptical journey before star constellations that grace the West’s Zodiac.

In the full moon, just chopstick lots of dumplings! But leave some for the monkey!