This weekend people around the world will celebrate Chinese New Year 2569 according to Kongzili, the lunar Chinese calendar.
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This weekend, precisely on Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, people around the world will celebrate Chinese New Year 2569 according to Kongzili, the lunar Chinese calendar. From Feb. 16, 2018 to Feb. 4, 2019, all Chinese people and Chinese descendants throughout the world will pass the Year of the Brown Earth Dog.
All Indonesians of Chinese descent (Tionghoa) across the country are also getting ready for the Chinese New Year celebrations. Many Chinese families have already finished their “Spring cleaning” and decorated every part of their homes, and shopping outlets are bedecked with decorations, knick-knacks and all manner of items for Imlek – as the Chinese Lunar New Year is known locally.
Imlek,also called Sin Cia (Chūn Jié in Mandarin) or the Spring Festival, was originally celebrated by farmers in China to welcome the change in seasons from winter to spring. It begins on the 30th day of the 12th month and ends on the 15th day of the first month.
Celebrations include the Lunar prayer, a prayer to the Creator (Tian) and the Cap Go Meh (Lantern Festival) to express gratitude and hope that the coming year will mean a better life, praying to the ancestors and holding a family reunion, as well as celebrating with friends and neighbors
Why is Lunar New Year celebrated?
The Imlek holiday in Indonesia is a Chinese tradition that has been celebrated from generation to generation in many parts of the country. In fact, all Chinese in countries around the world, such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam, with different backgrounds, religions or faiths, also celebrate the event.
Lunar New Year is also a significant day for the adherents of Khonghucu (Confucius). Imlek holds a significance like Idul Fitri does for Muslims, Christmas for Christians, Waisak (Vesak) for Buddhists and Nyepi for Hindus.
In general, Imlek is celebrated in Indonesia with a family reunion that gathers members of the extended family. Imlek is also marked by fireworks and barongsai (lion dance) to enliven the celebration.
Decades ago, during the New Order era (under former president Suharto), the Lunar New Year celebration was not permitted to be held in public. Chinese-Indonesians therefore only observed group prayers or had lunch together, but they could not mark their major holiday as a public celebration. During the New Order, traditional arts like the lion dance appeared to have been forgotten, although some people maintained the practice in quiet. The dance was performed only in private Chinese homes, but it was taboo to perform it in public.
As we know from recent history, a wave of reforms that followed the resignation of Suharto freed the restrictions imposed on Indonesians of Chinese descent. Gradually, Chinese-Indonesians were given the opportunity for a wider political role.
Chinese New Year was officially recognized as a public holiday with the issuance of the Presidential Decree No. 19/2002, which reaffirmed the message that Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent were an integral part of the nation.
Answering a question about the origin of the Chinese lunar calendar, the supreme leader of the the Confucian Supreme Council of Indonesia (Matakin), Budi S Tanuwibowo, said that the lunar calendar, or Kong Zi Lik, was created by Huang Di, the fourth Confucian prophet who lived from 2695-2598 BC and known to be an astronomer.
Huang Di was also known as the king who pioneered farming in China in the region between the Yangtze River and the Hwang He River.
Huang Di taught the people how to make paddy fields and gave land ownership to farmers. He also provided a collective or communal land to be used as a seedling farm or to build communal barns. The beginning of spring was set as the first day of the lunar calendar.
In the Chinese tradition, the lunar calendar is used to mark the annual cycle, to determine the date for worshiping the turn of the year, and is a reference for the planting season. The rise and fall of imperial dynasties are also recorded according to the lunar calendar.