Multitude of New Year's

PM and I now have three different New Year's to celebrate. We start with what we know as simply New Year in America on December 31st from the Gregorian calendar. Next comes Orthodox New Year on January 14th, which is based on the Julian calendar. Finally, this year, we ended with Lunar New Year on February 19th, which is derived from the lunar calendar.

Most people are familiar with how America celebrates New Year's Eve and those of you who have followed our blogs since Macedonia got to learn about Old New Year, but this year was our first celebrating Lunar New Year.

Some of you may be confused because you have heard of Chinese New Year, rather than Lunar New Year. They are one-in-the-same. I am choosing to use Lunar New Year as it is celebrated elsewhere, not just China (China is just the largest population to celebrate). Lunar New Year is also celebrated in Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and Tibet.

With the New Year drawing closer, PM and I were asking around about how the multi-day holiday is celebrated here. Most people we talked to, compared it to American Thanksgiving. There is lots of food and lots of family. There is a great documentary about all the migrant workers in China who return home for the New Year's celebrations and I can only imagine how packed the train stations were here in Guangzhou.

For PM and I and our friends at the consulate, Lunar New Year means time to travel but also many amazing decorations displayed everywhere.