It’s “Lunar New Year” now. Of course, there are many lunar calendars with differing starts of the year but let’s just pave over that to Frankenstein together some generic nonspecific holiday because Gyna bad.
It’s “Lunar New Year” now. Of course, there are many lunar calendars with differing starts of the year but let’s just pave over that to Frankenstein together some generic nonspecific holiday because Gyna bad.
Alright I'm going to take a step back: is there some specific event you're referring to?
No? It’s a general trend. Chinatowns, whom I highly, highly doubt are celebrating Tet, are having to switch to “Lunar New Year”.
It’s like how the Russian bakery near my place had to put up a stand with Ukraine poster because they got vandalized and had their windows broken.
Similarly, the rise in Sinophobic hate crimes is closely correlated with the current political climate. Associating yourself with China invites accusations of disloyalty similar to the situation faced by Japanese-Americans in the lead up to and during WWII. You know how westerners freak out when they see non-Christians in traditional religious clothing? It’s not quite on the same level, but this is getting close to concealing that you are, for example, a Muslim and just saying “I’m religious” so as not to be targeted for it. Or saying “I’m partaking in a religious fast” during Ramadan.
They are having to avoid specific references to their own culture and having to substitute a generic term.
Regardless of matters of self-identification, the principal issue is that westerners, who have up until recently used “Chinese New Year”, are now using “Lunar New Year” to refer to the same specific holiday in order to avoid mentioning China. It is not more inclusive of other Lunar New Years because, in the minds of the vast majority of westerners, it still refers to the Chinese New Year. This is easy to tell with regards to Tet as the zodiac is not exactly the same.
I don't think I share your opinion. In my city, where there are large numbers of both Chinese and Vietnamese people, there are specific events for CNY, specific events for Tet, and general events meant to be inclusive of both. In my experience, the east Asian diaspora populations in the US express a significant amount of solidarity with each other. Through this lens I see the "rebranding" as a willingness to share and to acknowledge that the Chinese aren't the only ones who celebrate a new year at this time. Part of this is that I think large amounts of the populations are now second generation. They went to school here and grew up with Vietnamese or Chinese neighbors and friends who they could share (in some respects) a holiday with. The Asian neighborhoods in my city are very heterogenous.
In my opinion, this is more like people starting to say "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas". I think the change came from an instinct to be inclusive rather than attempting to hide because of the rise in anti-Asian violence. Most younger east Asian-Americans in the US are liberal and have, like white liberals, adopted the language of inclusion.
I doubt you'll agree, but my outlook on it isn't as dim as yours. Anecdotally, when I'm with my Chinese and Vietnamese friends in mixed company, they (and myself) tend to simply ask each other what they're doing for "new year" rather than bothering to say CNY for the Chinese friends or Tet for the Vietnamese friend.
Again, The Lunar rebranding is principally viewed from the outside POV. Of course Chinese people are not going to call the holiday “Chinese New Year” because it’s just the New Year.
The Lunar New Year is the Chinese New Year for the vast, vast majority of non-SE Asian Americans. CNN and company is not referring to “Lunar New Year” out of the goodness of their hearts but rather to further entrench the idea of ties to China as acts of treason. This is like if “Happy Holidays” referred to Christmas, and only Christmas.
If you go to most American calendar apps now, turning on Chinese Holidays gives you “Lunar New Year”. I think this is a key example.
I don't think we're going to agree on this.
Happy New Year.
fuck off liberal.
Happy Chinese New Year
This is not remotely true in my experience. At best, it's sorta true if you're talking about 2nd+ generations. For the 1st generation, a lot of the country beefs like China vs Korea traveled with them. I've had Korean people say that parts of Manchuria should be part of Korea, Chinese people constantly shitting on Japan for what they did during WWII, and so on. A lot of the provincial beefs Chinese people have with each other also traveled with them, so northerners vs southerners, waishengren vs benshengren, the Mainland vs Taiwan vs Hong Kong. Pretty much every specific East Asian group has their own church or temple, so the South Korean Christians go to their own church, the Taiwanese benshengren go to their own church, the Hong Kongers go to their own temple. There isn't a generic Asian church or temple that people of Asian descent go to.
Your experience is only Chinese and Vietnamese, and that honestly has more to do with the Chinese diaspora being traditionally from the South and part of the Vietnamese diaspora being Hoa, which is the ethnic Han diaspora in Vietnam that also came from the South. So, a Cantonese diaspora could get along with a Vietnamese diaspora with the Hoa/Cantonese Vietnamese acting as a bridge between the two communities. Mix in the more white-washed 2nd+ generation, and it's not hard to see intermingling between the two communities with Canto-Viet families that are still pretty in touch with their Asian roots. But a bunch of Beijingers or Northeasterners isn't going to mix well with the Vietnamese diaspora at all.
I think the 2nd generation bit is important, and may be the reason the nomenclature is shifting. 2nd generation asian-americans are making up a larger and larger portion of the asian community in the US.
At my college, by far the largest social club was AAA (Asian-American Association) and it was similarly pretty heterogenous, and they'd throw "Lunar New Year" events owing to their diverse membership.