Happy Chinese New Year

In 2025, the 29th of January marks the beginning of the Year of the Wood Snake – but what does that mean? Whoever saw a wooden snake?

The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, which is based both on the Moon’s phases and the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. It is used for religious purposes, festivals and for agriculture, although the Gregorian calendar tends to be used for administrative and commercial purposes.

Each year has a name corresponding to 12 animals (which can vary in some countries) but each year is also connected to one of the 5 Elements, resulting in a repeat every 60 years. The Snake is the sixth animal in the cycle and is associated with wisdom or elegance, intuition, and strategic growth. When paired with the Wood element, there is an emphasis on adaptability, creativity and long-term planning. This means that those who can master strategy, patience, and contemplation will enhance their knowledge and skill at handling difficulties and should benefit from more opportunities for success and personal development. While this is always good advice, the energy this year is particularly supportive.

How to welcome in the Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year (新年) is also known as the Spring Festival (春节). The purpose of the New Year celebration is to remove the old and the bad and to welcome the new and the good. Fire crackers and lion dance troupes in the streets usher in the New Year by chasing away evil spirits. As in Scotland, people will clean and tidy their homes, often redecorating and buying new furniture and, for the duration of the 15 day festival, hang red couplets and lanterns inside and out.

Food is an important part of the celebrations which are mainly spent with family. It’s common in China for people to work away from home, but at this time of year buses and trains fill up as everyone returns home to reunite all the generations and to burn incense to recognise the ancestors. Another tradition is for parents and grandparents to give children good luck pocket money known as Ya Sui Qian (压岁钱) in a red envelope (Hong Bao 红包).

Associated with this fresh new start are certain taboos, such as not sweeping the floor or throwing anything out on New Year’s Day as you will lose all the new good luck. It is also not good to scold children, no matter how naughty they are!

So, how do you greet someone to wish them well? In northern China, where Mandarin is spoken, it is common to say “Xinnian Kuaile” (Happy New Year) and in Guangdong and Hong Kong, the Cantonese version is “Gong Hey Fat Choi” (wishing you a prosperous year). Either will do!

Author: suse

My introduction to Chinese martial arts came through an evening class at Bathgate Academy where I had the chance to learn Wudan style Taiji. On leaving the area, over ten years ago, I studied Qigong through the Qigong Teachers' Association, enabling me to introduce people where I live on the West Coast, to this wonderful healing practice. My personal studies continue through an open approach to study with several schools and teachers, to whom I am eternally grateful.