Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year, is the 15-day festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar 🌕

This year, the festival falls on February 1st, bringing in the year of the tiger 🐯

We have picked out four articles from our publishing partners’ archives that showcase the spectacular celebrations, as well as highlighting issues faced by Chinese communities across the world.

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Remus ‘Chinese New Year’ Issue 51, Spring 2015

“There are lots of superstitions about New Year.”

Do you know where why Chinese New Year is celebrated with fireworks and red decorations? Issue 51 of British Museum’s Remus explains all with a insightful overview of the celebration 🎇

According to legend, in ancient China, Nian, a man-eating beast from the mountains, could enter houses silently to hurt humans. The people learnt that Nian was sensitive to loud noises and the colour red, so they scared it away with explosions, fireworks and by decorating everywhere in red. These customs led to the first New Year celebrations and continue to this day 🔴

Read the article, pages 25–27, here.

BBC History Revealed ‘Dance Of The Dragons’ February 2021

“Chinese New Year festivities would not be complete without the dragon dance, a symbol of power and good luck.”

The February 2021 issue of BBC History Revealed Magazine features this amazing photo, taken in 1965 in the streets of Chinatown in Manhattan, New York. The community is one of the oldest and largest Chinese ethnic enclaves outside of Asia in the world, and can be traced back to the first Chinese immigrants to arrive in the US, in the 1850s 🐲

Read the article, pages 6–7, here.

New African ‘Meet Africa’s Most Integrated Chinese Community’ June 2015

“In Mauritius, a small but significant minority Chinese population has long been a leading light in the nation’s rainbow of cultures.”

Across much of Africa, there have been teething problems as Chinese migrants have settled down. These same issues were being dealt with centuries ago in Mauritius, where a small but prosperous Chinese community has become an integral part of the island’s make up 🇲🇺

But all is not smooth sailing for the minority group, whose numbers are dwindling year by year.

Read the article, pages 56–58, here.

Prospect Magazine ‘Chinatown Calling’ June 2021

“Before the pandemic upended all our lives, it first came for Chinatown. Beverley Lin, manager of the London Chinese Community Centre, which has been standing here for 40 years, noticed that visitor numbers were dropping as early as January last year.”

The June 2021 issue of Prospect Magazine discusses the long, rich and varied history of Chinese immigration to the UK, through the lens of the suffering of London’s Chinatown during the pandemic 🇨🇳

Read the article, pages 46–51, here.

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Access to the digital magazine issues included in this post will be active until the 1st March 2022.

Fully-searchable digital subscriptions to Remus, BBC History Revealed, New African & Prospect Magazine are all available in the Exact Editions individual and institutional shops.