As more than a billion Chinese people celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Rat (albeit with many restrictions due to the coronavirus epidemic), we asked the Italian-Chinese community in Milan how it reconciles the traditions of yesterday and today. What Chinese New Year is and how it is celebrated.
Awakening, regeneration, rebirth. The dates, traditions and celebrations of Chinese New Year differ from those observed in the West, but the aim remains the same: to prepare for the year ahead with renewed energy. Chinese New Year 2020 falls on 25 January and marks the end of the Year of the Pig, one of the twelve Chinese zodiac signs, and the beginning of the Year of the Rat. It is known as the Spring Festival – even though it falls in winter, it is the gateway to the season of renewal – and is the most important occasion in the Chinese calendar, celebrated at home by more than a billion citizens.
Many Chinese people, however, live in diasporas spread across the world, such as the one in Milan, concentrated around the main thoroughfare of Chinatown, Via Paolo Sarpi. Here, as in the rest of Italy, some people celebrate it while others do not have the time, since for our country it is an ordinary working day. This is a testament to the fact that keeping the traditions of the homeland alive is a challenge for this community.
One is therefore led to wonder what is passed on to the second generation of Italian-Chinese children on the occasion of this festival. Whether they know that, in ancient times, every year a monster named Nian (年), which means "year" in Chinese, would visit villages on the eve of the first day of the year, forcing the inhabitants to take refuge in the mountains. One time, however, a wise old man managed to defeat the demon once and for all by dressing in red and arming himself with firecrackers and lanterns, also strictly red. This is a folk legend, the details of which vary depending on the version, that explains the origins of some of the most typical customs of Chinese New Year. What can be defined as a historical fact, on the other hand, is that this festival, celebrated for more than four thousand years, originated as a ceremony to ask the gods and ancestors for a good harvest in the year to come.
One of the fundamental differences between "our" New Year and the Chinese one is that the latter does not fall on a fixed date, but varies from year to year between 21 January and 20 February in the Gregorian calendar. For example, this year it falls on 25 January, but in 2021 Chinese New Year will fall on 12 February. The celebrations last two weeks: they begin with New Year's Eve, followed by the Spring Festival — that is, the first day of the new year in the Chinese lunar calendar, which corresponds to the second new moon after the winter solstice. Everything concludes with the Lantern Festival, on the fifteenth day, which in 2020 falls on Saturday 8 February.
Officially, however, the public holidays amount to seven days, even though some people — such as pupils in Chinese schools — are on holiday for the entire duration of the celebrations. This year, if you are in China, expect shops and offices to be closed from 24 to 30 January.
On 25 January 2020 we enter the Year of the Rat. According to legend, this is the first sign of the Chinese zodiac because the rat arrived first at the feast of the Jade Emperor, the ruler of heaven, who had proclaimed that the order of the signs would be decided in this way. The signs alternate in a 12-year cycle, and each year of the lunar calendar corresponds to an animal with which certain character traits are associated, in exactly the same way as in Western astrology. For example, people born under the sign of the Rat are clever, kind and versatile.
| Zodiac sign | Birth year |
|---|---|
| Rat | 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020 |
| Ox | 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009 |
| Tiger | 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, |
| Rabbit | 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011 |
| Dragon | 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012 |
| Snake | 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013 |
| Horse | 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014 |
| Goat | 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015 |
| Monkey | 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016 |
| Rooster | 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017 |
| Dog | 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018 |
| Pig | 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019 |
"Each day is associated with very specific activities, which the more traditional families continue to observe", especially those outside China's major cities, which "are becoming somewhat westernised by now", explains Valentina Talia, head of the communications office at the Istituto Confucio of the Università degli studi di Milano, which promotes Chinese culture through language courses and educational activities such as those held for Chinese New Year to "bring closer the Italians who perhaps still know little about China, which is now an increasingly present part of our context".
"New Year's Eve begins with cleaning the house to symbolically drive away negative things and make room for good fortune in the new year", explains Talia. In the evening, people eat together as a family — traditionally at home, or at a restaurant as Linda Li does, originally from Wenzhou and living in Italy for 18 years, who works in one of the many wholesale clothing shops in the Sarpi area. She spends New Year's Eve with her sister and her 11-year-old son who, despite having been born in Italy, is just as enthusiastic as his mother about this moment of family togetherness — this year, moreover, Linda's parents are also visiting from China. Confirming that theirs is not the only family gathering in Chinatown for New Year is the restaurant Jubin, which received many bookings for the dinner on 24 January (other restaurateurs, however, were not so fortunate, demonstrating that not all residents of the area celebrate this occasion, as we will go on to see).
The first day of the new year is also devoted to spending time with relatives, eating traditional New Year dishes and exchanging gifts wrapped in red paper or red money envelopes — red being the colour of good luck and good omens. During the celebrations, the underwear one wears should even be this colour, just as in Western tradition, according to which one should wear at least one red garment (often underwear itself) on New Year's Eve, as it brings good luck.
"Chinese New Year is, in a nutshell, a reunion of the extended family", says Andrea Zhou, born near Wenzhou and raised in Emilia-Romagna. He is one of the five young partners of Chinese origin who opened Moodmarket, a shop and bar dedicated to tasting Chinese food products in via Paolo Sarpi. "The Spring Festival holds an important meaning for all Chinese people — it's the only one when we rest", he says, adding that this does not happen in Italy, where people work normally, but back home where "the atmosphere is very different from here".
