Queering Lunar New Year
My regular pagan holiday letter
Dear Friends,
Ah, the legendary red envelope — a festive pocket-sized surprise filled with cash, making it rain luck on New Year’s Day. My memory holds onto that one special red packet, a gift from my friend MeiBeck, a tradeswoman sister and ironworker extraordinaire.
Inside? A crisp two-dollar bill, because we’re both as queer as a two-dollar bill. With that red envelope, MeiBeck queered Chinese New Year, and confirmed me as a member of her fabulous queer family!
We were among millions of people celebrating the Lunar New Year, a serious party among East and Southeast Asian cultures — Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and more. The celebration can be traced back 4000 years.
Lunar New Year begins on the date of the second new moon after the winter solstice, which usually occurs December 21. This means that the first day of the Lunar New Year can take place anytime between January 21 and February 20. This year, the Year of the Dragon, the celebration kicks off on February 10. Forget one-day celebrations; this shindig lasts for 15 days, rocking the lunar party until the moon is full, at the lantern festival on the last day.
At Lunar New Year we celebrate the end of winter and the start of spring. Traditionally, New Year’s is all about family, ancestor honoring, feasting, dancing dragons, lanterns and of course fireworks! China traditionally marks Lunar New Year and other holidays with loud firecrackers to rid families and businesses of bad luck.
We all know that the Chinese invented fireworks. As the story goes, around 800 CE, an alchemist mixed sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate (a food preservative) hoping to find the secret to eternal life. Instead, the mixture caught on fire, and gunpowder was born! When the powder was packed into bamboo or paper tubes and lit on fire, history had its first fireworks.
According to legend, the centuries-old New Year’s tradition was started to scare off demons. Fireworks helped drive away the mythological nian, a fierce lionlike beast that rose from the sea each New Year’s Day to feast on Chinese villagers and their livestock. Nian disliked loud noises and the color red, so villagers posted red signs on their doors and lit firecrackers. The ritual is still performed to ward off evil spirits.
I caught a double dose of airport fireworks during a long layover in Beijing — both landing pre-dawn and taking off that night. It was awesome! But that was before China’s state media cast the practice as an environmental faux pas, an air polluting indulgence. The state now urges families to use flowers and electronic substitutes instead.
Hundreds of Chinese cities have banned or restricted the use of pyrotechnics since 2018. Beijing extended a downtown fireworks ban across the entire city in 2022, allowing it to record its cleanest air on record since the monitoring of hazardous PM2.5 particles began in 2013.
Major Chinese cities organized official displays to ring in 2023. But across the country, members of the public celebrated China’s first post-COVID New Year by disregarding the ban. Social media images showed people shooting fireworks from the backs of mopeds and through car windows.
San Francisco, where I lived for 40+ years, has a large Asian population, and the Lunar New Year still paints the town red. Many neighborhoods are bustling in the lead up to the new year. The whole city celebrates. Last year San Francisco’s Chinatown had a five-hour long pyrotechnic display.
San Francisco boasts the biggest Chinese New Year parade outside of Asia — a tradition since the gold rush days. And it’s not a solo act; every town around the Bay Area has its own Lunar New Year spectacle. We Sonoma County residents have a menu of celebrations to choose from.
Lunar New Year coincides with the pagan holiday Imbolc, heralding the start of spring. Here in northern California, February feels like the real New Year’s kickoff. Signs of spring are everywhere — blossoming trees, early flowers showing off. In December, as a solstice ritual, I planted hyacinths and tulips in our drought tolerant front yard. These bulbs do their thing in rainy spring, no watering needed. They will soon bloom. Right now, in the midst of an atmospheric river of rain, our daffodils are in full bloom.
While we won’t be setting off fireworks, there are many parts of this celebration we like to adopt.
In China everyone takes the first day of Lunar New Year off work. I wish I’d known this when I was still working. For retirees, I guess it’s a day to do whatever we feel like (much like every other day).
There is lots of feasting and we can totally get into that. I look forward to eating Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean food!
In the week before the new year, cleaning house takes priority, sweeping away any ill fortune and making way for incoming good luck. The Goddess of the Garage beckons us for a spring cleaning extravaganza.
And we will not forget the household deities traditionally honored at New Years — a nod to the Kitchen Witch and a shout-out to the Garden Goddess. It’s time to get the garden ready for spring planting.
This year I’m following MeiBeck’s example and queering the tradition of the red envelope. I found envelopes, Chinese lanterns and new year’s candy at the World Market. Now I just have to find $2 bills. There aren’t many in circulation but the U.S. government mint still prints them. I’ll give them to friends who, like me, are queer as a two-dollar bill.
However you celebrate, we wish you a Happy New Year.
Love, Molly (and Holly)
