All photos courtesy of Innovate Marketing Group
Ready to ring in the Lunar New Year with fun and entertaining event ideas? Take your Lunar New Year Celebration and spruce it up in time for the 2023 Year of the Rabbit. The long-time celebrated occasion is a time to commemorate prosperity, health, and good fortune with friends and family.
Lunar New Year is the perfect opportunity to learn about your employees’ and clients’ cultural traditions and backgrounds. Recognizing and celebrating their racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds is an effective strategy in building long-lasting relationships with them.
Lunar New Year Corporate and Community Events:
Lunar New Year is traditionally celebrated with banquet-hall gatherings, gift-giving, fireworks shows, dragon dances, and parades that attract huge crowds to Chinese communities.
Dumplings, noodles, and tangerines are just some of the elements that make this celebration tasty and flavorful. Activities also include giving out red envelopes, calligraphy classes, and lighting lanterns and firecrackers.
Entertainment ideas to Celebrate Lunar New Year
The Lunar New Year event experience includes amazing festivities, live entertainment, culinary delights, beautiful décor and engaging performances such as:
- Chinese opera
- Lion dances
- Fireworks
- Live entertainment
- Mask changing
- Chinese dough modeler
- Acrobatics
- Lantern exhibit
- Mahjong
- Reunion dinner
Some other fun Lunar New Year tips are:
- Wear red= good luck
- Make sure your house is clean (clean before Lunar New Year Day)
- Tea Ceremony - The tea ceremony represents harmony, respect, purity and tranquility.
- Feng Shui - Feng Shui is a practice of arranging a space in order to create balanced energy and harmony between an individual and their environment.
- Foods to enjoy: Dumplings, fish, and orange, because dumplings look like gold yuanbao (ancient money), the word for fish in Chinese, (鱼) sounds like ‘surplus’, and the word for orange (桔) in Chinese sounds like “fortune/luck” .
Here are Some Fun Facts about the Lunar New Year!
A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon’s phases, in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year.
Lunar New Year 2023 – Date: Sunday, January 22nd, 2023.
2023 is a Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac, starting from January 22nd, 2023, and lasting until February 10th, 2024.
Animal Sign Description: The Rabbit is the fourth animal of the Chinese zodiac. Rabbits represent kindness, courage, and strength. They are very goal-driven and are careful with their next moves. Rabbits are good at socializing and paying close attention to detail.
The Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival, also called Yuan Xiao Festival, is a holiday celebrated in China and other Asian countries that honors deceased ancestors on the 15th day of the first month (Yuan) of the lunar calendar.
The Lantern Festival aims to promote reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness. The holiday marks the first full moon of the new lunar year.
During the festival, houses are festooned with colorful lanterns, often with riddles written on them; if the riddle is answered correctly, the solver earns a small gift.
Festival celebrations also include lion and dragon dances, parades, and fireworks. Small glutinous rice balls filled with fruits and nuts, called yuanxiao or tangyuan, are eaten during the festival. The round shape of the balls symbolizes wholeness and unity within the family.
Official Explanation
According to Britannica, the Lunar New Year is "the festival typically celebrated in China and other Asian countries that begins with the first new moon of the lunar calendar and ends on the first full moon of the lunar calendar, 15 days later." To read the full explanation, click here.
Discovering Your Zodiac Animal
Use the chart below to discover your Zodiac Animal and corresponding personality traits based on the year you were born:
Rat:
1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020
Quick-witted, resourceful, versatile, kind
Ox:
1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021
Diligent, dependable, strong, determined
Tiger:
1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022
Brave, confident, competitive
Rabbit:
1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023
Quiet, elegant, kind, responsible
Dragon:
1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024
Confident, intelligent, enthusiastic
Snake:
1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013, 2025
Enigmatic, intelligent, wise
Horse:
1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014, 2026
Animated, active, energetic
Goat:
1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015, 2027
Calm, gentle, sympathetic
Monkey:
1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016, 2028
Sharp, smart, curious
Rooster:
1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017, 2029
Observant, hardworking, courageous
Dog:
1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018, 2030
Lovely, honest, prudent
Pig:
1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019, 2031
Compassionate, generous, diligent
Source: https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-zodiac/
