In 2024, a surprising news spreads: for five years in a row, we have not had Chinese New Year's Eve!This has puzzled many people, why does the Chinese New Year's Eve come and go?
The Chinese New Year's Eve of the Lunar Year of the Dragon is February 9, 2024, which is the "last Chinese New Year's Eve in recent years".
Because from 2025 to 2029, the Chinese New Year's Eve for five consecutive years will be "the twenty-ninth of the big year".
These days are:
January 28, 2025, February 16, 2026
February 5, 2027, January 25, 2028
February 12, 2029.
So why do sometimes there be Chinese New Year's Eve and sometimes not?
To answer this question, we need to understand the difference between the lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar. The lunar calendar, also known as the summer calendar, is a calendar in which the moon orbits the earth once in one month and twelve months in a year. The Gregorian calendar, or solar calendar, is a calendar in which the earth revolves around the sun as a year.
Due to the difference in the time it takes for the moon to circle the earth and the time for the earth to circle the sun, there is sometimes a large gap between the date of the lunar calendar and the gregorian calendar. This explains why sometimes the Chinese New Year's Eve falls around January 20 in the Gregorian calendar, and sometimes around February 18.
After understanding the difference between the lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar, let's look at why there are five consecutive years without Chinese New Year's Eve. It turns out that in the lunar calendar, the first day of each month is the new moon, and the thirtieth day of the Chinese New Year's Eve is the last day of the lunar year, that is, the thirtieth day of the wax month of the old calendar year. If the new moon is exactly before the thirtieth month of the lunar month, then there is no Chinese New Year's Eve for that year.
For five consecutive years starting in 2024, the new moon occurs exactly before the thirtieth month of the lunar month, so there is no Chinese New Year's Eve in these five years. But this does not mean that the Chinese New Year's Eve "disappears", but that it is advanced in the Gregorian calendar date.
Chinese New Year's Eve comes and goes, mainly because of the difference between the lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar. When the new moon is exactly before the thirtieth day of the lunar month, we will usher in the new year earlier on the Gregorian calendar date, so that there is no Chinese New Year's Eve. Therefore, you don't have to worry about the "disappearing" of the Chinese New Year's Eve, you just need to spend reunion time together on New Year's Eve and welcome a beautiful year.