Chinese New Year 2023: The Year of the Rabbit, The Year of Hope

By Sammy Tang, Sales Director Xerox Business Solutions (XBS) West Los Angeles, CA Executive Board Member of Asians Coming Together (ACT), a Xerox ERG

The Lunar New Year Festival is Asia’s most celebrated holiday. We get to honor and connect with traditions of my ancestors from the Far East, all while creating new opportunities here in the West. Being the first person in my family born in the United States, it is an especially meaningful time of year. The Lunar New Year gives us permission to access and celebrate the Old World as we trailblaze and define our American Dream in the New World. The stories of previous generations come to life, and I relish celebrating the unique dual unity the Lunar New Year brings.

Xerox has asked me to share with our community how I celebrate the Lunar New Year. I am honored to share our rich history, culture, traditions and I promise to share how I observe this special holiday.

The Lunar New Year is based on the lunar calendar and this year it started on January 22nd. Each year is aligned to one of the twelve rotating Chinese zodiac animals. This year is the Year of the Rabbit. In Chinese culture, the rabbit symbolizes longevity, peace, and hope. This is the Year of Hope.

In penning this, I have been asking myself:

What does a ‘Year of Hope’ look like?

What is hope?

Why do we hope?

Hope can seem scary or even dangerous at times. It puts our wants and needs on the line. We hope because we want a positive change in the future. When I think of the word, I think of how my family had to cling on to hope in order to survive when they were forced to flee Vietnam. The want and belief of a better life got us through some of the gloomiest and frightful times when we first settled at Pomelo Street in Monterey Park. I was born and raised in Monterey Park where neighbors and community have become life-long chosen family. Four decades later, this is still our home. ?

Monterey Park is full of hope. It is a stubborn and strong community that allowed my family, Boat People and other war refugees, to thrive in our refusal to assimilate in a new world. The first suburban Chinatown, it encourages honoring our heritage and this can be seen by the Chinese Character signage of storefronts and hundreds of different dialects spoken at markets that make a beautiful song. It is an ethnoburb home for diasporic families like mine where first generation immigrants share common hope for a better life in a new country. It is the glue that binds, and we would not be here without hope.

Where there is hope, there is fear. Like the Yin and Yang, they can only exist because there is the other.

We saw fear in action in this past weekend’s senseless massacre in Monterey Park. The unexplained bullets that took eleven lives is trying to take down our community and infringe on our hope. But not even bullets can drive out hope. Neither can fear. Nothing can. Hope is one of the few things that can never be taken from anyone. ?

While fear is present, we must remind ourselves. This is the Year of Hope.

Amidst the thickness of this intense grief, like my community, I am shattered. Broken into pieces and working towards healing, we must do what we know and carry out traditions and what we have always known in honoring the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Rich in history and culture, how we celebrate has not changed much since I was a child. We continue to carry out the same rituals and traditions and I continue to find much comfort in how this holiday grounds and connects. Depending on the province, region, village, subculture and family, how Asians celebrate can vary. Xerox asked me to share some traditions in how we celebrate the Lunar New Year. Here is how my family celebrates.

We pray.

We pray to our ancestors, those who came before us, and those no longer with us. In front of our ancestral altar, we honor their eternal life with special offerings, and we feed them. Whole Chicken which represents wholeness. My Ma’s special Zhongzi (“Chinese tamale”), a labor of love which includes sticky rice and symbolizes unity, togetherness, and community. Whole citrus fruits like pomelo which represent abundance are also placed on the altar. In turn, we ask for them (our ancestors) to protect and to watch over us as we enter a new year.

We pour tea and wine.

We share this as a sign of respect and way to celebrate with those who have left us. We remember them and include them in our celebration.

We light incense.

This is how we get rid of negative energies as we cleanse our home and make room for a positive new year.

We feast.

We take the offerings from the altar and move them to our dinner table. This is Ma’s love language. All her children around the table, and we feast over an abundance of traditional dishes. What joy it is to have four generations of family together! We also share dessert. This year, we had orange cream cake. Oranges are bright, vibrant, and are associated with good fortune. Orange and tangerine sounds (phonetically in Chinese) like good fortune and success, so families tend to exchange citrus fruits with each other.

We embrace our family.

Given schedules and how busy we can all get, having the whole family is a unique and rare moment. It is important to embrace one another and capture a momentous time because everyone is present. This is something we do not take for granted and we take photos of the entire family to capture this special time.

We cleanse.

Out with the old, in with the new. On New Year’s Eve, chores are complete. We do not do chores during the celebration. All laundry is done, the house is swept, anything that is borrowed is returned, debts are paid. We purge things that no longer serve us and do not start off the year owing anything. We sweep and get rid of all the negativity. No sweeping is allowed during the New Year celebration because we do not want to “sweep away” our new good fortune. New Year, New Slate.

We share well wishes and blessings.

We share blessings and say, “Gung Hay Fat Choy!” “Wishing you good health and abundance and a Happy New Year.” In colorful, bright, new clothes, we wear bold, rich, lucky and happy colors of gold, red, royal blue, emerald, we share well wishes, and only speak positive words. We avoid conflict, bad words, and arguments because the first day of the new year sets the tone for the new year. It is taboo to speak of any negative thoughts to ensure the new year is positive. In other words, if the first day of the new year is off to a great start, it will be a great year!

We give and receive red envelopes.

Adults* give children red envelopes (hongbao or lei see) which represent “good luck”. It is more than just “good luck,” though. We believe that if you have health, you should be happy. To have health and happiness, you should be considered lucky. Without health and happiness, money has no value; so, giving or receiving red envelopes, represents wishes for good health and happiness that is to be treasured and enjoyed. It does not work the other way around. We can have all the money in the world, but it cannot be enjoyed if we take our health for granted. Money cannot buy us health or happiness, so since we have it, let’s treasure it.

We ward off Evil with firecrackers!

With our full bellies and hearts, and before the clock strikes midnight on Chinese New Year’s Eve, we light up mini red dynamite firecrackers! We rush out to the sidewalk where the lit incense creates a mystic heavenly cloud in the streets. The familiar smell of Chinese incense reminds us that our ancestors are with us. We join our neighbors to light firecrackers. Legend has it that the gun-sound of the firecrackers ward off the evil spirits and negative energy as we welcome the New Year.

I celebrated with my family by doing all the above and we were just waiting for midnight to light the firecrackers. But the gunman beat us before the clock struck midnight. If only, we lit the firecrackers to ward him away?

The celebration of New Year during such immense grief of eleven lost is a new duality that we are processing. It is in these dark moments of fear where we must hang tight to the one thing that cannot be taken from us, hope. ?

Trust in our history, tradition and ancestors to ground us and keep us together.

Do not stop.

May we…

We pray

We drink

We light incense

We feast

We embrace one another

We cleanse

We share well wishes

We give

We receive

We ward off evil

Now more than ever, we must be like the rice in our traditional Zongzi and stick together.

May we continue to lean on each other within our families and communities.

We are Monterey Park Strong.

We are Hope.

Wishing you and yours a Happy Lunar New Year of longevity, peace, and hope.

*Adult: Chinese culture, history, tradition, and values do not define or identify adulthood by an age number. One becomes an adult when they get married. In modern times (and in some subcultures) this evolved to when a person starts their career. For example, I am unmarried and have a career, and give red envelopes.

The gesture of giving red envelopes is one of privilege because it indicates that the giver (adult) has the resources and awareness to gift well wishes for future generations. The elderly is also gifted red envelopes even though they are “adults,” and we do this because we wish them continued good health and longevity because we want them to be part of future celebrations.?