CNY

1. Chinese New Year
Chinese communities across the United Kingdom
celebrate Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring
Festival or Lunar New Year. People organize large scale
community and public celebrations. These festivities may last
for up to two weeks.
Most event are open to the general public and are
generally friendly and welcoming for people of all
backgrounds to learn more about the Chinese culture. Large
public celebrations are held in central London, Manchester,
Leeds, Birmingham and Sheffield.
Families, community centers and student associations
often also hold private celebrations. These may be small
parties at home or larger events for hundreds or thousands of people. Special dishes
representing luck and happiness in the Chinese New Year are often served.
Symbols of Chinese New Year include red
lanterns with gold characters, red envelopes
containing gifts of money, fireworks, lion dance
displays and special types and displays of food. The
types of food that people eat during the festival vary
according to the region in China from which they or
their ancestors came.
Many people in the Chinese community make a
special effort to wear red clothes. They often believe
that red represents fire and can scare evil spirits away. Other symbols of Chinese
New Year include appropriate elements and animals from the cycle of names of years
in the Chinese calendar.
The exact date is calculated according to lunar and solar calendars, so it changes
every year. Find out when it falls this year in the table below. Each year is the year of
a different animal.
You can also find out which animal you are:
rat 19 February 1996 7 February 2008 25 January 2020
ox 7 February 1997 26 January 2009 12 February 2021
tiger 28 February 1998 14 February 2010 1 February 2022
rabbit 16 February 1999 3 February 2011 22 January 2023
dragon 5 February 2000 23 January 2012 10 February 2024
snake 24 February 2001 10 February 2013 29 January 2025
horse 12 February 2002 31 January 2014 17 February 2026
goat 1 February 2003 19 February 2015 6 February 2027
monkey 22 January 2004 8 February 2016 26 January 2028
rooster 9 February 2005 28 January 2017 13 February 2029
dog 29 January 2006 16 February 2018 3 February 2030
pig 18 February 2007 5 February 2019 23 February 2031