Reflections on Lunar New Year Culture

Chinese civilization has endured for over three thousand years and, in principle, should be a force enriching global culture and advancing human development. Yet to this day, its influence remains comparatively deeper within East Asia, while modern Western societies often lack understanding of it or regard it as backward. Over the past forty years, however, China’s economic rise following reform and opening up has astonished the world.

Chinese migrants make up about 6% of Australia’s population, forming the largest non–English-speaking ethnic community. Yet within Australia’s multicultural society, the long history of Chinese culture has had only limited influence. As a migrant community, have we truly been given meaningful opportunities under Australia’s multicultural integration policies to contribute to society? Or are we instead increasingly viewed as carriers of a Communist governing culture allegedly in conflict with Australian social values: democracy, freedom, rule of law, and human rights? That tension is a question we must confront.

China’s Active Cultural Export

In recent years, China has actively promoted Chinese culture globally; from historical and fantasy dramas that have become popular on platforms like Netflix, to Mandarin language learning becoming a top choice for global businesspeople and students. In 2024, China even applied to UNESCO to designate Lunar New Year as an Intangible Cultural Heritage item, signaling that it views the festival as a national treasure.

At the same time, rising cultural pride has increasingly shaped patriotic sentiment, sometimes appropriating others’ cultural expressions while failing to reflect on how Chinese culture itself may be reframed or distorted by state narratives. China exports culture abroad while simultaneously censoring, managing, or reshaping it domestically, which is a contradiction worth examining.

China and Lunar New Year

Recently, the Chinese government has emphasized renaming Lunar New Year celebrations worldwide as “Chinese New Year,” sparking considerable debate. To examine the hegemonic tone emerging in China’s cultural narrative, we must return to history rather than rely on emotional reactions.

In early agrarian Chinese societies, rituals marking the start of the year were already practiced. During the Tang and Song dynasties, festivities became more secular and commercialized, with lantern festivals and temple fairs flourishing. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, Spring Festival had become the most important annual celebration and spread outward through migration and trade. Historically, Lunar New Year is indeed central within the broader Chinese cultural system.

However, if we trace the history of the lunar calendar itself, the story becomes more complex. In the late Ming and early Qing period, the Italian Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell (known in Chinese as Tang Ruowang) was commissioned to help reform the Chinese calendar. By incorporating Western astronomical calculations, he contributed to the development of the Shixian calendar, later formally adopted by the Qing court. In other words, today’s “lunar calendar” is itself a product of cross-civilizational scientific exchange. To reduce it to a purely indigenous creation of Chinese civilization overlooks its hybrid origins.

Is It Exclusively Chinese?

The core issue is not whether Lunar New Year is part of Chinese culture — it clearly is — but whether it is exclusively Chinese. China is not the only country using a lunisolar calendar. Regions throughout East and Southeast Asia celebrate the new year in distinct ways.

Vietnam celebrates the Year of the Cat rather than the Year of the Rabbit. South Korea calls the holiday Seollal and maintains its own ancestral rituals and traditional dress. Malaysia and Singapore recognize it as a public holiday within multiethnic societies, where it becomes a shared celebration rather than an exclusively Chinese one.

Lunar New Year is a major component of Chinese culture, but it is also a shared cultural heritage of a broader regional civilization. Cultural confidence should rest on respect for difference, not monopoly over interpretation. Yet when the Chinese state equates Lunar New Year entirely with “Chinese New Year” and dismisses other cultural versions, it reframes shared heritage through a nationalist lens.

Athletes and the Fixing of “Patriotism”

Some may argue this is simply a state safeguarding tradition and strengthening unity. Yet national narratives often extend beyond slogans.

Take freestyle skier Eileen Gu as an example. Born and raised in the United States to a Chinese mother, she grew up navigating two cultures. In 2019, she announced she would represent China internationally and later won gold at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, becoming a prominent figure in Chinese sports. She described herself as American in the U.S. and Chinese in China, emphasizing fluid identity. Yet U.S. Vice President JD Vance questioned whether athletes trained in the American system should represent the United States instead, which is a stance that similarly links identity to loyalty.

By contrast, figure skater Alysa Liu, also born in the United States to a Chinese family, chose to represent the U.S. Her father publicly cited concerns about China’s political and human rights environment as a reason. In public discourse, she has sometimes been framed as symbolizing clearer “loyalty,” while Gu’s cross-cultural choice faces suspicion.

When the West Grows Confused

The difference between these athletes reflects personal decisions and family contexts. Yet public discourse turns them into ideological contrasts. When national narratives become politicized, sports transform into stages for identity performance. Athletes’ citizenship choices are loaded with symbolic meaning, framed in binaries of patriotism and betrayal.

The underlying logic of that benefiting from one country obliges exclusive loyalty, or that cultural identity must be fixed — mirrors the naming dispute around Lunar New Year. It is a worldview that demands boundaries around culture and singular definitions of belonging. Such narratives may appear to strengthen national identity but ultimately weaken cultural flexibility and pluralism.

More concerning is that this mode of thinking is not confined to China. The example of Vance criticizing Gu demonstrates how politicized cultural identity narratives can seep into democratic societies as well.

Cultural Contradictions

China often seeks to monopolize cultural symbols like Lunar New Year, presenting its interpretation as superior. Yet contemporary discourse frequently politicizes or misreads classical references.

For example, the idiom “ke mu zhi fu”, sometimes misinterpreted in public commentary, originally related to ancient stories about filial piety — particularly the tale of Ding Lan carving wooden effigies of his deceased parents to honor them. The moral tension in such stories highlighted how excessive formalism could eclipse humanity. Yet modern commentary sometimes repurposes such idioms for political symbolism, stripping them of their ethical nuance.

Similarly, a New Year’s Eve bell-ringing ritual at Dharma Drum Mountain in Taiwan — a Buddhist tradition symbolizing the removal of 108 afflictions — was recently politicized online after footage showed a red cord shaking during the ceremony. What should have remained a folk-religious custom was reinterpreted through supernatural or political lenses, revealing how quickly culture becomes ideological theater.

Can a State Draw Cultural Boundaries?

Ultimately, the debate is not merely about naming Lunar New Year or which country an athlete represents. It raises a deeper question: can a state define culture and draw boundaries around it?

Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, in The Clash of Civilizations, argued that post–Cold War conflicts would center on civilizational divisions rather than ideology. He categorized civilizations — Western, Orthodox, Islamic, Hindu, Latin American, African, Sinic — but did not argue that states could monopolize civilization itself. Civilizations evolve over centuries; they are not the exclusive property of governments.

Yet when culture becomes equated with political authority, and loyalty becomes conflated with cultural belonging, Lunar New Year, athletic representation, and overseas Chinese identity all become politicized.

If one state can fully define culture, what does that mean for diaspora communities? If culture equals regime, must culture be rewritten whenever regimes change? If patriotism requires accepting an official version of culture, does alternative interpretation equal betrayal?

Perhaps the real question is not who represents culture — but how much of culture remains once it becomes thoroughly politicized.