Celine :
I’ve noticed something really strange happening online over the past few years. When I was little, we French called this festival Chinese New Year (Nouvel An Chinois). and we never used the term “Lunar New Year” before. Everyone knew this festival belongs to Chinese culture. Chinese communities all over the world keep celebrating their new year even when they’re far away from home, and we would always see celebrations in Paris, including lion dances and dragon dances on the Champs-Élysées. But within the past three or four years, people online have been aggressively pushing the term “Lunar New Year”. Some Vietnamese people even claim it’s “Vietnamese New Year”, and some Koreans say it’s “Korean New Year”. What’s weirdest is that when Chinese people say “Happy Chinese New Year”, many people actually tell them not to say that, and force them to say “Lunar New Year” or something else instead. They are not even allowing Chinese people to celebrate their own festival with its real name. I find this extremely weird and inappropriate. To me, this is clearly erasing a race’s culture, blurring its origin, and replacing it. I’ve checked on Google, and anyone can verify this: Chinese New Year is recognized internationally and is a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage of China. The date of Chinese New Year is calculated and announced every year by the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, China. If China didn’t announce the date, how would Vietnamese and Korean people even know when to celebrate? Why are they all celebrating on the same day? Who are they following? It’s shocking that so many people online are going along with this without thinking. It feels like there is some planned intention to erase Chinese culture. This is not a small issue. This is a major cultural festival for Chinese people. I really don’t understand why so many people are helping this unfair and disrespectful behavior.
2026-02-19 22:50:19