Year of the Dog

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival in modern China, is an important Chinese festival celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. It is one of several Lunar New Years in Asia.

Celebrations traditionally run from the evening proceeding the first day, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first calendar month. The first day of the New Year falls on the new moon between January 21 and February 20. In 2018, the first day of the Lunar New Year was on Friday, 16 February, initiating the year of the Dog.

There are twelve animals in the Chinese horoscope. This includes the ox, rat, horse, tiger, sheep, monkey, dragon, snake, rooster, dog, pig, and the snake. Each New Year is represented by one of those 12 animals. This year is the year of the dog and last year was the monkey. The order was decided when all the animals decided to have a race and who won was to be the first animal in the year.

To everyone’s surprise the rat won and was awarded the first year of the cycle. Some people ask why there is no cat. Well the rat and cat were once best friends and the cat asked the rat to wake him up before the race but the rat forgot and the cat wasn’t included in the horoscope in the end. That is also why rats and cats hate each other.

Prima International School is a school that encourages diversity and we are very proud to point out that within this school we care for students’ academic achievements as well as for students’ personal and social well-being. One way to learn from one another and to get closer to each other is to mark certain religious holidays.

This February, Prima School celebrated the year of the dog with a number of Chinese customs. We had a traditional tea ceremony, a traditional Chinese fan dance, a presentation about the horoscopes made by the students who learn the Chinese language and one more presentation about Chinese decorations also made by the Chinese class students. Chinese New Year is here - and, with it, comes a number of superstitions that will apparently dictate how the next twelve months will play out for each of us.

Cleaning clothes, using scissors and sweeping floors are some of the easier omens to sidestep, however parents might find it difficult to dodge crying children and - on the more extreme end of the scale - women might find it difficult to avoid leaving the house all day. According to Chinese superstition, doing any of these on 16 February - the day Chinese New Year falls on in 2018 - will lead to bad luck for the entire coming year.