- Legends:
The Rabbit is the fourth of all zodiac animals. Legend has it the Rabbit was proud, sometimes arrogant even of its speed. He was neighbors with Ox and always made fun of how slow Ox was.
"One day, the Jade Emperor said the zodiac order would be decided by the order in which the animals arrived at his party. Rabbit set off at daybreak. But when he got there, no other animals were in sight. Thinking that he would obviously be first, he went off to the side and napped. However, when he woke up, three other animals had already arrived. One of them was the Ox he had always looked down upon."
Similar to Esopo fable The Tortoise and the Hare, adapted by La Fontaine, isn't it?
The traditions of the Lunar New Year festival date back thousands of years to a popular legend:
"A mythical beast called Nian was known to show up each Lunar New Year’s eve and terrorize people and livestock. Loud noises, the color red and fire scared Nian away, so it became a tradition for families to decorate their doors in red paper, set off fireworks and leave lanterns burning all night."
- Google Doodles:
Today’s Doodle celebrates an important holiday in several Asian cultures. The Lunar New Year! After the first new moon of the Lunar calendar each year, communities around the world set up decorations, make festive food and gather with loved ones to usher in the New Year.
The Doodle artwork is crafted from paper to honor Chinese paper-cutting 'Jianzhi', which is a long-time Lunar New Year tradition.
Today 22 January in Asian calendar, red remains a key part of Lunar New Year celebrations as people hang red lanterns in the streets and gift money in red envelopes to children and retired seniors.
Traditional meals are popular during celebrations and they vary across the world. For example, pineapple tarts and yusheng (a dish with raw fish and a salad) are a staple in Singapore and Malaysia, while communities in Vietnam enjoy bánh chưng (a rice cake made with mung beans, pork, and other ingredients wrapped in bamboo leaves).
This Doodle celebrates Lunar New Year, or Seollal (설날) in Korean. Each year, South Koreans enjoy this important holiday with family gatherings, traditional feasts and festive games.
세배 (sebae) is a principal Korean tradition where young people kneel on the ground and bow their heads to pay respect to older people and wish them a happy new year. Afterwards, older people often reward the youth with money inside envelopes wishing good luck. Families then feast on traditional food like tteokguk (떡국), a creamy rice cake soup, and sweet fritters called jeon (전).
The Doodle celebrates an important festival in Vietnam - Lunar New Year ! Known as Tet in Vietnamese, this holiday is celebrated by communities each year celebrating love, the start of spring, and the best of hopes for the new year. During Tet festival, people often travel to the homes of their extended families and bring in the new year with feasts.
Tet Festival is traditionally celebrated across six days to spend time connecting with friends and colleagues and visiting temples and ancestral burial sights. During family feasts, people typically eat vegetables, banh chung (sticky rice cake), and cu kieu (pickled scallion).
The colors red and yellow are tied to good fortune, and Vietnamese people give money in red envelopes to children and retired seniors. It’s also a tradition to decorate the outside of homes with flowers - most commonly hoa dao (cherry blossoms) in the north and hoa mai (yellow Mai flower) in the south.
- Lantern Festival:
Chinese New Year 2023 falls on Sunday, January 22nd, 2023, and celebrations culminate with the Lantern Festival on February 5th, 2023.
The Chinese New Year holiday comes to its great moment with the Yuan Xiao (元宵节 / yuán xiāo jié), or Lantern Festival, celebrated on February 5th, 2023.
The biggest attraction of the Lantern Festival is the sea of lanterns in every conceivable size and shape. Interesting! To us who live in Porto, Portugal, we have a traditional and popular festivity in June 24 called Noite de São João.
During this ancient festivity, all the people in town, young and oldest, go to the streets enjoying and releasing big colorful lanterns to the sky during all night.
- Lantern Festival in History:
Chinese started to celebrate the Lantern Festival during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-221 AD), and then it became popular during the Tang dynasty (618-907) and Song Dynasty (960-1279).
This is a festival for people to have fun. At night, people go into the streets with a variety of lanterns under the full moon and watch the lion or dragon dance, try to solve Chinese riddles and play games, enjoy typical food called Yuan Xiao and set off firecrackers. There is really a lot of fun for the young and the old.
Began over 2000 years ago, the festival has developed many meanings. It celebrates family reunions and society. It features ancient spiritual traditions. Some also call this the “true” Chinese Valentine’s Day.
Education:
As you see interculturality is all over de world. Three-quarters of the world’s major conflicts have a cultural dimension.
- To raise awareness worldwide about the importance of intercultural dialogue, diversity and inclusion.
- To build a world community of individuals committed to support diversity with real and every day-life gestures.
Learners are curious about other cultures and traditions. Let students participate in different activities by doing ONE thing for diversity.
- Values: family, friends, honoring old people. And of course, sensitivity, prosperity and peace.
- Diversity and interculturality:
Bridging the gap between cultures is urgent and necessary for peace, stability and development.
Cross-curricular project: Languages; literature; history and geography; music; art.
If you are the Art teacher, invite your students to do rabbits artwork crafted paper in different colors to honor the paper folding & cutting art traditionally practiced during Lunar New Year. They will love it!
Don't forget ! The #YearOfTheRabbit is about sensitivity, prosperity and peace, values that must be a part of all the Humanity.
May this #LunarNewYear2023 bring happiness and prosperity to you and your loved ones!
No matter where you’re celebrating, here’s to a wonderful Lunar New Year 2023!
G-Souto
22.01.2023
copyright © 2023G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com
Schools : Happy Lunar Year 2023, Year of the Rabbit ; science & interculturality ! by GinaSouto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
sources:
EarthSky/ Human world
Chinese Zodiac/ Year of the Rabbit
Confucius Institute Scotland/ The Legend of the beast Nian
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