Which country has designated the Spring Festival as a legal holiday?

According to incomplete statistics, including China, 13 countries in Asia have designated the Lunar New Year as a public holiday. Besides China, the 12 countries in Asia are: North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Philippines, Brunei and Bhutan. Here, the Philippine Spring Festival is a public holiday, but there is no holiday; 11 other countries have a Spring Festival holiday. In addition, in countries such as Cambodia and Laos, although the Spring Festival is not a national holiday, Chinese bosses often give employees a holiday during the Spring Festival. The total population of these 12 countries is nearly 500 million. Including China's population, nearly 1.9 billion people in Asia celebrate the Spring Festival, which is much more than the number of people who celebrate Christmas and other festivals. Therefore, the Spring Festival is the most important festival in Asia.

While the Chinese people are celebrating the New Year with great joy, people in many Asian countries also hold colorful activities to celebrate the Spring Festival and bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.

North Korea: The Spring Festival is the most important festival of the year, and people are singing and laughing everywhere on the first day of the Lunar New Year

In the Korean Peninsula, South Korea and North Korea, the Lunar New Year is the most important festival of the year. In South Korea and North Korea, the Lunar New Year is not called Spring Festival, but Seollal, and the Chinese characters are "Old Jung" or "New Year's Day". The first to third day of the first lunar month are statutory holidays for the whole nation.

The North Korean government stipulates a three-day holiday from the first day of the Lunar New Year; during the festival, theaters, cinemas, stadiums and other places will add festive activities.

During the Spring Festival, both the government and the private sector hold many celebration activities.

The Korean people are optimistic by nature and good at singing and dancing. During festive seasons, recreation is essential. According to North Korean custom, after celebrating the Spring Festival, the whole family, old and young, gathers together to have fun together. The women played yotz and jumped off the springboard. Children can play spinning tops, fly kites, and skate. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the streets of Pyongyang, from April 25th Square to Kim Il Sung Square, were filled with men, women, old and children playing. People were singing, laughing and enjoying the joy of the festival.

South Korea: It pays as much attention to the Spring Festival as China does, especially New Year’s Eve.

Koreans pay as much attention to the Spring Festival as China does. The state stipulates a three-day holiday during the Spring Festival, which is the longest holiday in the year. The Korean New Year is very festive.

Koreans are very particular about going home to visit relatives before New Year's Eve. No matter where they work or how far they are from their hometown, they have to rush back to their hometown to reunite during the Spring Festival. Therefore, South Korea also has a "Spring Festival Transport". Every year before New Year's Eve, there will be a picture of tens of millions of troops returning home, causing traffic tension. Korean restaurants have a long-standing custom of "not opening their doors after thirty". Koreans have been very particular about cooking New Year's Eve dinner at home since ancient times and eating at home.

South Korea is very particular about celebrating New Year’s Eve. Like many rural areas in China, there is a custom of keeping the year old. According to custom, Koreans cannot sleep at night on the New Year's Eve, and the whole family must stay up late with their ancestors to welcome the sunrise on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Otherwise, a person's eyebrows will turn white. South Korea's New Year's Eve dinner is very particular. The biggest feature is that the meals are all traditional.

Vietnam: The Spring Festival has a "Golden Week", and the first month is a month of "eating, drinking and having fun"

In Vietnam, the Spring Festival is the most important national festival of the year and the most lively among the people. traditional festival. In Vietnam, the Lunar New Year is not called Spring Festival, but is called Tet Nguyen Dan, which means "New Year's Day".

According to the provisions of Vietnam’s labor law, Vietnam has four days of Spring Festival holiday, namely: New Year’s Eve, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the second day of the Lunar New Year, and the third day of the Lunar New Year. In addition, Saturday and Sunday alternate days off. Therefore, the Spring Festival holiday lasts for eight days, similar to China's "Golden Week".

The Spring Festival in Vietnam begins on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month every year, the Kitchen God Festival, and the New Year atmosphere continues throughout the first month. According to Vietnamese folk saying, the first month is the month of "eating, drinking and having fun".

On New Year’s Eve, Vietnamese families sit together, eat New Year’s Eve dinner, and watch the New Year’s Eve together. Vietnamese people have the custom of erecting flags and eating rice dumplings on New Year's Eve. A bamboo pole, with the top bamboo leaves trimmed off, and red flags and wind chimes hung on it. Legend has it that the sound it makes when the wind blows will scare away ghosts. The rice dumplings are round and square, symbolizing the round sky and the square place, and are considered to be a symbol of happiness and abundance.

In the Vietnamese Spring Festival, flowers are an indispensable and important part. Many big cities hold various spring flower markets and flower shows.

Various flowers such as yellow plums, peach blossoms, orchids, lilies and sun chrysanthemums add joy to the festival.

In the homes of the Yue (Jing) people, there are three essential decorations during the Spring Festival: peach blossoms, kumquat bonsai and "five fruit pots". In the minds of Vietnamese people, peach blossoms are a ward off evil spirits and a symbol of luck. Kumquat means good luck. The "Five Fruit Basin" is used to worship ancestors.

Mongolia: colorful costumes, plenty of food and drink, and flourishing singing and dancing

In the peaceful country of Mongolia, the Lunar New Year (Spring Festival) is called Tsagaan Sar, which means "White Moon". It is the second largest festival in Mongolia after Naadam, and its time is often slightly different from the Chinese Spring Festival. This year’s Mongolian New Year falls on February 8th.

In December 1988, the Presidium of the Mongolian Great People's Hural decided that the Spring Festival, the Lunar New Year, would be a national holiday with a three-day holiday.

Historically, the Spring Festival was not a traditional festival of the Mongolian people. However, due to the increasing number of Han people living in the Mongolian areas, the people's customs also changed, making the Spring Festival a Mongolian and Mongolian festival. A festival celebrated jointly by the Han people. The Mongolian People's Republic was separated from China, so it retained the habit of celebrating the Spring Festival.

In grand festivals, Mongolians put on colorful costumes, bring out the most delicious food, invite best friends and relatives to their homes, and drink fragrant kumiss while , while singing and dancing to your heart's content, while tasting the tender finger meat.

The Spring Festival is a great time for grassland people to gather and communicate with each other. It is rare for them to meet each other in normal times. During the Spring Festival, friends who have been separated for a long time may meet at horse racing or wrestling conventions.

When Mongolians who grew up in cities celebrate the Spring Festival, on the one hand, they retain some of their own ways of celebrating, such as eating hand-caught mutton, barbecue mutton skewers, drinking and singing, playing the matouqin, etc. . On the other hand, they also have basically the same celebration methods as the Han people, for example, having a reunion dinner on New Year's Eve; gathering relatives and friends for dinner; setting off firecrackers, eating dumplings, and children wearing new clothes.

Singapore: Red lanterns are hung high, and two oranges are used as New Year gifts

In Singapore, Chinese account for more than 80% of the total population. Since the founding of Singapore, its main leaders have been of Chinese descent. Therefore, Singapore’s emphasis on the Spring Festival and its habits of celebrating the Spring Festival are basically the same as those in southern China.

Singapore has two statutory holidays for the Spring Festival. Including Saturday and Sunday, it is a four-day holiday.

As soon as New Year's Day is over, Christmas decorations are removed from the streets, alleys and business districts of Singapore and replaced with traditional Chinese New Year costumes. Large and small red lanterns are hung high and New Year pictures are posted. come out. Most Chinese people have a red and gold character "福" posted on their homes to express their yearning for a happy life.

When Singaporean Chinese celebrate the Spring Festival, every family steams rice cakes, puts up Spring Festival couplets, and visits the flower market. The most important thing is the family reunion dinner on New Year's Eve. On the first day of the new year, the younger generations send New Year greetings to their elders one after another, and the children receive lucky money from their elders.

Citrus is a must-buy during the New Year. When Singaporean Chinese celebrate the New Year, they must put two tangerines in a delicate paper bag as a New Year gift to express the multiple blessings of "good luck", "two grains of gold" and "good things come in pairs". When the host leaves the guest, he must return two oranges.

Malaysia: The government holds a grand Spring Festival celebration

A quarter of the Malaysian population is Chinese. Malaysian Chinese regard the Spring Festival as the most important festival of the year. The government designated the first and second days of the first lunar month as legal holidays.

In Malaysia, the New Year is generally celebrated from the winter solstice to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. During this period, blessings such as "Congratulations to Raya" are heard endlessly. "Congratulations" is in Chinese and "Raya" is in Malay. The Chinese and the Malays cleverly combined the two congratulations into one, expressing the unanimous voice of all people: "Happy holidays!" On New Year's Eve, the whole family eats a reunion dinner together to watch the New Year. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, people generally stay at home to receive New Year greetings from relatives and friends of other ethnic groups such as Malays and Indians, and prepare sumptuous meals - spring rolls, lobster slices, curry chicken, curry beef, coconut rice... to entertain the distinguished guests.

On the evening of February 10 this year, the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage of Malaysia held a grand Spring Festival celebration in the bustling downtown area of ??Kuala Lumpur, the capital. Tens of thousands of Malaysian people of all ethnic groups and foreign tourists gathered at Bukit Bintang Road and Sungei Wang Plaza to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Malaysian Prime Minister Badawi, Deputy Prime Minister Najib, and Malaysian Indian Congress Chairman Sami Velu were present to participate in the celebration. Badawi delivered a speech at the meeting. He said: Malaysia is a multi-racial country. Mutual respect and cultural integration among people of different races are the characteristics of Malaysia. He wished Chinese Americans all over the country "Gong Xi Prosperity" in Chinese, and finally used a brush to add the final touch to the "All the best" message written by a local calligrapher.

Malaysian Chinese also have an interesting traditional activity: on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, unmarried men and women throw apples to women, and women throw oranges to men, hoping to find a husband or a gentle girl.

Indonesia: Wahid abolished Suharto’s ban, Megawati declared the Spring Festival as a national holiday

Indonesia is the country with the largest number of overseas Chinese in the world, with a total of more than 1,000 Thousands of people. Now, most of Indonesia's large companies are founded and led by Chinese.

The Indonesian government has officially designated the Spring Festival as an official holiday in 2002, with a national holiday. However, this legal holiday was hard-won, and hundreds of thousands of Chinese paid the price with their blood.

Although most Chinese Indonesians have become Indonesian citizens, their living habits and cultural traditions still retain Chinese characteristics. After Suharto launched a coup to overthrow the legitimate President Sukarno in 1965, he massacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese. In 1967, Suharto's military regime banned Chinese people from celebrating the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival in public, and Chinese Indonesians were deprived of their legitimate rights for more than 30 years. It was not until Wahid, who is of Chinese descent, became president that the ban was officially abolished on February 18, 2000, and Confucianism was recognized as a legal religion in Indonesia. On the same day, the first Spring Festival Gala in more than 30 years was held in Jakarta. President Wahid attended the party and delivered a speech. On February 17, 2002, then-President Megawati (Sukarno’s daughter) officially announced at a Chinese gathering in Jakarta to celebrate the Spring Festival of the Year of the Horse that the Indonesian government decided to designate the Spring Festival as a national holiday in the country and announced to The majority of Chinese wish you a happy Spring Festival.

Before the Spring Festival this year (the Year of the Rat), Indonesia's largest English-language newspaper "The Jakarta Post" used a four-page Chinese Spring Festival special edition to comprehensively introduce the Chinese Spring Festival with pictures and texts. In addition, major Chinese-language newspapers in Indonesia such as International Daily News and Indonesian Business Daily also extensively reported on activities celebrating the Spring Festival in various places during the Spring Festival.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, major shopping malls in Indonesia have carefully decorated Chinese-style pavilions to welcome the Spring Festival. Hotels and restaurants have launched Chinese-style gifts and New Year’s Eve dinner packages. Chinese temples have been repainted, lanterns hung high, and men and women worship devoutly. Former President Wahid and current government officials attend Jakarta's large Chinese New Year celebrations every year.

Philippines: The president congratulates the Chinese on the Spring Festival and declares the Spring Festival as a national public holiday

Most people in the Philippines believe in Christianity. Chinese account for about 12% of the Philippine population. In recent years, the Philippines has also enjoyed the Chinese Spring Festival. The Philippines designated the Lunar New Year as a national public holiday in 2004, but it does not have a holiday. Only Chinese schools have two days off on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2002, Philippine President Arroyo signed a proclamation to express congratulations to the Chinese, becoming the first Philippine president in history to sign a proclamation of congratulations on the Chinese New Year. In addition to expressing holiday congratulations to the Chinese Filipinos, President Arroyo also said something very characteristic of Chinese culture: "I am a pig. According to Chinese tradition, people who belong to the pig will have good luck in the Year of the Horse. ”

On January 11, 2004, Arroyo announced that February 9, this year’s Chinese New Year, would be designated as a special national working holiday to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Arroyo pointed out in the announcement: "This is to promote cultural understanding and integration and give Filipinos the opportunity to celebrate the festival with all Chinese." Although the Spring Festival has been declared a special working holiday, except for the Chinese community, private sector employees and government workers will still go to work as normal on February 9 without overtime pay.

Since 2004, every Spring Festival, Chinese Filipinos have celebrated the traditional festivals of the Chinese nation in a more festive atmosphere than before, and some political dignitaries also participated in the Spring Festival celebrations.

Thailand: The princess and government officials presided over the Spring Festival celebrations

In Thailand, except for the government departments and banks that will be open as usual, there will be a three-day holiday from the first to the third day of the Spring Festival.

Thai Chinese have always retained their own customs and habits, such as the Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and other festivals. Every New Year's Eve, every household holds an ancestor worship ceremony, and then the whole family sits around for a reunion dinner. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, everyone puts on new clothes. When relatives and friends pay New Year greetings to each other, they customarily put their hands together and wish each other "good luck and good luck."

The place with the most Chinese New Year atmosphere in Thailand is Chinatown in Bangkok. During the Spring Festival, there will be lion dances, dragon dances, etc. in the streets. Key officials from the Bangkok City Government will travel to Chinatown around New Year's Eve to host a series of celebrations. Princess Sirindhorn often goes to Chinatown on New Year's Eve or the first day of the Lunar New Year to host high-profile Sino-Thai cultural exchange activities.

Thailand’s largest Spring Festival** event will be held in Samut Prakan Province, more than 300 kilometers north of Bangkok. During this period, there will be lion and dragon dancing, gongs and drums, stilt walking and land boat running, etc. The climax of the show is the "Flying Golden Dragon" performance of more than 30 meters long. This event attracts large audiences every year.

Myanmar: The first day of the Lunar New Year is a national holiday, and the north pays more attention to the Spring Festival.

In Myanmar, the first day of the Lunar New Year is a legal public holiday.

On New Year’s Eve, the whole family of Myanmar Chinese eat New Year’s dinner together. After the meal, they gather together in a lively manner, waiting for the arrival of the first day of the new year. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, people wear new clothes and visit relatives. Relatives and friends who live in different places use this festival to reunite to celebrate the New Year and "gongxi and get rich".

In the northern part of Myanmar, there are more Chinese people and their status is very high. Chinese is the common language there, RMB is the common currency, and the mobile phone number is a Chinese number. During the Spring Festival, the festive atmosphere there is more lively than other areas and there are more activities.

Laos: National leaders attach great importance to the Chinese Spring Festival

In terms of calendar, Laos uses the Gregorian calendar, the Buddhist calendar and the small calendar at the same time; among some ethnic minorities, the Chinese lunar calendar is also used. There is a Spring Festival in Laos, but the calendar is different from China’s, so it is not at the same time as the Chinese Spring Festival. The Chinese in Laos and the ethnic minorities who use the Chinese lunar calendar celebrate the Chinese New Year every year. China's Spring Festival is not a national holiday; however, Chinese bosses often give their employees a day off during the Spring Festival.

Lao leaders attach great importance to the Chinese Spring Festival and they participate in the Chinese Spring Festival celebrations. Once, Chinese entrepreneur Mr. Zhang Guilong invited officials from the Chinese Embassy in Laos to attend a Spring Festival party at their home. Several members of the Political Bureau of the Lao Party were also invited to attend, as well as the president of the Lao Buddhist Federation.

Japan: The Spring Festival used to be the most grand festival in Japan

The Spring Festival used to be the most grand festival in Japan. Before the Spring Festival, every family decorates their house with pines and cypresses. On New Year's Eve, the whole family gathers around the stove to stay up late. The temple rings 108 bells at midnight, and the next day they wish each other happy New Year.

However, in 1873 during the Meiji period, Japan stopped using the lunar calendar and switched to the solar calendar, and at the same time abolished the Spring Festival. Since then, the Japanese have used January 1 (New Year's Day) of the Gregorian calendar as the official New Year.

After switching to the New Calendar, although most areas in Japan do not celebrate the Lunar New Year, areas such as Okinawa Prefecture and the Amami Islands in Kagoshima Prefecture still retain complete Lunar New Year customs. Moreover, Spring Festival as a cultural phenomenon can still be felt in Japan. Chinese in Japan still celebrate the Spring Festival.

Brunei: Children pay New Year greetings during the Spring Festival, and the owner gives the child a "green envelope"

The Spring Festival is a national statutory holiday in Brunei.

When Brunei celebrates the Spring Festival, the most distinctive activity is the "Opening the Door to Welcome Guests". During the Spring Festival, people will open their doors and welcome neighbors, relatives and friends to visit and send greetings to each other. Local Malays still have the habit of taking their children out to pay New Year greetings. The host usually gives the children "New Year's money". However, the outer packaging of Brunei's "New Year's money" is green, so it is not called "red envelope" but "green envelope".

Bhutan: The Spring Festival customs are basically the same as those of Tibetans

In Bhutan, the Spring Festival is a national holiday.

Bhutan’s lunar New Year is called Losar (Tibetan for “New Year”), and its date coincides with the Chinese Spring Festival. The habits of the Bhutanese people celebrating the New Year are basically the same as the habits of the Tibetan people in China celebrating the Spring Festival.