Rooster boosters

LUNAR NEW YEAR

China’s biggest festival is going global

Jan 28th 2017 | BEIJING AND YANGON

RED lanterns adorn the aisles of a small supermarket. There are stacks of red envelopes on sale, for stuffing cash in and handing out as gifts. A sign offers seasonal discounts. Such festive trappings are ubiquitous in China in the build-up to the lunar new year, which this year starts on January 28th. But this is Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, where Han Chinese are a mere 2.5% of the country’s population. They are a sign that Chinese new year is becoming a global holiday.

Several countries in Asia celebrate the lunar new year in their own way. But dragon and lion dances in Chinatowns the world over have helped to make China’s the most famous. These days growing numbers of people who are not of Chinese descent are joining in. In Tokyo window cleaners dress up as the animals of the Chinese zodiac. Barcelona’s Chinese parade includes dracs (a Catalan species of dragon). America, Canada and New Zealand have issued commemorative stamps for the year of the chicken (or cock or rooster, as the animal of 2017 is sometimes called, inaccurately: the Chinese word is gender neutral). Last year New York city made the lunar new year a school holiday for the first time.

The spread of the spring festival, as China calls it, is partly due to recent emigration from China: 9.5m Chinese people have moved abroad since 1978, many of them far richer than earlier waves of migrants. It also reflects the wealth and globe-trotting ambitions of China’s new middle class: festivities in other countries are partly aimed at the 6m Chinese who are expected to spend their weeklong holiday abroad this year. International brands are trying to lure these big spenders with chicken-themed items.

Conscious of China’s growing economic and political clout, foreign leaders have taken to noting the occasion. Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, has given a video address, a tradition started in 2014 by her predecessor, David Cameron. Last year the country’s royal family tweeted a picture of Queen Elizabeth dotting the eye of a Chinese lion-dancer’s costume. Also in 2016, Venezuela’s culture minister admitted that his country was celebrating Chinese new year for the first time—with six weeks of festivities—in a bid to improve economic ties with China. It is rumoured that this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was held a week earlier than usual to avoid clashing with Chinese new year.

China hopes the festival will boost its cultural “soft power” abroad. So it sponsors related events, such as a display this year of martial arts in Cyprus and a traditional Chinese temple-fair in Harare, Zimbabwe. It may give Chinese officials satisfaction to see foreigners enjoy such festivities. They lament the growing enthusiasm among Chinese for Western celebrations such as Christmas—in December cities across China are bedecked with Santas and snowflake decorations. Chinese new year is a welcome chance to reverse the cultural flow.