BEIJING, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Hot question and answer: Why is the Spring Festival a United Nations holiday?
Xinhua News Agency reporter.
The 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution by consensus on the 22nd to designate the Spring Festival (Lunar New Year) as a United Nations holiday, which was warmly welcomed and enthusiastically supported by the United Nations Member States and the staff of the United Nations Secretariat.
Nowadays, many countries and regions observe the Spring Festival as a legal holiday, and about one-fifth of the world's population celebrates the Spring Festival in different forms. Why is the Spring Festival a United Nations holiday?What does it mean to be a UN holiday?What kind of world charm does the Spring Festival have?
Subheading) What is the importance of United Nations holidays?
At the United Nations Headquarters in New York, there are two types of holidays: official holidays and "floating holidays". On official holidays, the United Nations Headquarters is closed and no one is working, except for a few staff who have to stick to their posts, such as security guards. "Floating holidays" are additional benefits for a specific group of people, and staff members can choose to take a specific "floating holiday" according to their religious beliefs or cultural background. In principle, important events are not scheduled on "floating holidays" in the United Nations, but specific departments such as the Security Council sometimes arrange meetings on such holidays due to work needs.
In 2023, for example, there are 9 official holidays in the United Nations, including global public holidays, such as New Year's Day, and the official federal holidays of the host country, the United StatesImportant religious holidays, such as Christmas, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, are also official United Nations holidays. This year, there are a total of 8 "floating holidays", mainly religious and cultural holidays.
On the 22nd, the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution entitled "Allocation of Meetings and Places", designating the Lunar New Year (Spring Festival) as a United Nations holiday. As a "floating holiday", the resolution proposes that United Nations agencies at United Nations Headquarters and other duty stations celebrating the holiday avoid meeting on the day of the Chinese New Year, and encourages that this holiday be taken into account in the drafting of the schedule of meetings in the future.
What does it mean to be a United Nations holiday?
As noted in the General Assembly resolution, many United Nations Member States celebrate the Spring Festival, which is of great significance. Every year, the Secretary-General of the United Nations delivers a Chinese New Year message.
Dai Bing, Chargé d'affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations, said that China's promotion of the Spring Festival as a United Nations holiday is a pragmatic action to implement the Global Civilization Initiative and advocate respect for the diversity of world civilizations. The Spring Festival has officially become a United Nations holiday, which fully demonstrates the communication power and influence of Chinese civilization and oriental culture, will help promote exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations in the world, and embody the cultural values of pluralism and inclusiveness advocated by the United Nations.
Chen Guoguo, a Thai teacher whose ancestral home is in the Hakka region of Guangdong, said that the UN General Assembly's decision to establish the Lunar New Year as a holiday reflects the importance that the international community attaches to China and oriental culture. "In the past, Western festivals became the world's festivals, and now the international community is increasingly seeing and recognizing the importance of Chinese and Eastern culture to human civilization, which reflects the mutual respect and understanding between the Eastern and Western worlds at the cultural level, and is a good beginning to promote people-to-people ties and cultural integration between the East and the West. ”
Tomoki Izumikawa, a special researcher at the Institute of Area Studies at Okinawa University in Japan, said: "Celebrating the Spring Festival is a traditional way of life in the entire East Asian region, and Okinawa still retains the custom of celebrating the Spring Festival. I was very happy to learn that the Spring Festival was included as a United Nations holiday. ”
How influential is the Spring Festival in the world?
With the recovery of Vientiane and the renewal of plants and trees, the Spring Festival is an important festival in many countries and regions around the world. Vietnam, South Korea, North Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries have designated the Spring Festival as a legal holiday, and have formed a distinctive and large-scale celebration method in the local area.
Tet is an important traditional festival in Vietnam, and the holiday lasts for seven days. Vietnamese people usually start to prepare for the Spring Festival from the beginning of the lunar month, buying New Year's goods, offerings, cleaning and decorating rooms, buying New Year paintings, pasting Spring Festival couplets, etc. Flowers that carry good luck blessings are even more indispensable.
In North Korea, it is the tradition of the North Korean people to celebrate the Lunar New Year by cleaning up the inside and outside of the house, buying new clothes and food, greeting the elders on the morning of the first day of the first lunar month, and playing various folk games.
In South Korea, the big year.
Three. 10. The first and second days of the first lunar month are statutory holidays, and "sacrifices" and "New Year's worship" are the core contents. Early in the morning on the first day of the first lunar month, all kinds of sacrificial items are placed at home and activities to worship ancestors are held. After the sacrifice, the younger generations pay New Year's greetings to the elders in turn. Unlike Chinese "red envelopes", which represent festivity, Koreans choose to use white envelopes to hold New Year's money. Interestingly, the phenomenon of "Spring Festival" also occurs in South Korea.
Influenced by traditional Chinese culture, Okinawa, Japan still retains the traditional Spring Festival customs. On the morning of the first day of the first lunar month, some Okinawans go to their own wells or springs shared by their villages to draw a bucket of "wakami" (fresh, clean water) to pray for cleansing of the body and mind and eternal youth. Unlike sushi eaten on the island of Honshu in Japan, elbow is a must-have Chinese New Year's Eve meal for Okinawans.
In Malaysia, Chinese New Year public holidays are the first and second days of the Lunar New Year. During the Chinese New Year, many people like to "fish sheng": put colorful fish, side dishes, seasonings, etc. in a **, people gather in a circle, stand up, and repeatedly scoop up the materials on the plate with chopsticks, while saying auspicious words, in order to pray for prosperity in the new year, step by step.
Visiting Singaporeans to pay New Year's greetings is one of the traditional customs of Singaporeans to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Locals often visit their homes in a beautiful bag or gift box with an even number of oranges, which means "good things come in pairs". The colorful "Lao Yu Sheng" is the "big dish" of Singapore's Chinese New Year, with sashimi with shredded lettuce, shredded carrots, crushed peanuts, etc., and a sour plum sauce made from orange juice, which means that there is more than enough every year, good luck is the head, and sweet and sweet. (Reporter Shang Xuqian, Liu Kai, Zhang Yisheng, Guo Dan, Sun.)
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