Why There's NO MORE Chinese New Year

Is it problematic to call it Chinese New Year in 2023? The debate is raging on and let me tell you this, it's getting pretty political. Yeah, Andrew, it is that time of year again. You're going to see the Twitter threads. You're going to see the Reddit threads. Should we use the historical American term Chinese New Year? Or should you call it country specific names like or should we call it Shogatsu from Japan, even though they stopped celebrating in 1897 because they wanted to align themselves with the Western world? Andrew, why is it so like hotly debated? Is it even a real thing? Is this even real debate or is it just the internet being super sensitive? Well, let me tell you this. It's an Asian debate and I don't know how many people are debating it, but we got to talk about it because that's what we do on this channel. So here we have five points and five things you need to remember about Lunar New Year, aka Chinese New Year, aka so many other things. But let's talk about it. And I also want to touch on some things that like a lot of people are not discussing right now. So, you know, we're going to delve deep. As you know, that's what we do. So please, if you're interested by this video and you want to share it and you want more people to watch it, please hit that like button right now for us. Number one, Andrew, I think the truth is straight up off the rip. It's 2023. Most people can accept that it should be probably called Lunar New Year. Like in terms of the most safest American sense of calling it for the longest time, they called it Chinese New Year because Chinese were by far the largest population of people who celebrated it. Obviously, now there's a lot more Vietnamese, a lot more Koreans in America. And Lunar New Year, it just seems more inclusive. If you're like a white boss at work, send Lunar New Year to everybody. Well, you know, I don't really want to offend anybody. And, you know, to be honest, I don't know all their backgrounds because they kind of all look the same. So happy Lunar New Year. Happy ASEAN Festival. Happy Red Pocket New Year. I think that, yeah, that's the way to go. And it makes sense. I do think if you're like of the same ethnicity, let's say, for example, I'm Vietnamese and speaking to another Vietnamese person, I would probably say happy that. Yeah, of course. Yeah, you could be very specific. Obviously, if you know you're talking to Chinese people, you can say happy Chinese New Year. I highly doubt that they're going to be offended by that. Of course. However, I always thought it was weird when ABCs would say in full English to me. Happy Chinese New Year, though. For me, I'm the type of person where it's like I just say Happy Chinese New Year or Happy Lunar New Year. But what if they don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese? I don't care. I'm just going to say one of those two. They probably going to understand one of those two. All right. So number two, point number two, is that kind of the refusal to say Chinese New Year from some people is definitely tied and impacted by the modern geopolitics. What I mean is that it sounds like, especially in the past five, ten years, that more and more people may be trying to disassociate themselves from anything Chinese because Chinese also equals Chinese government, which equals a place that they don't like, you know, like and they don't approve of. Right? Yeah. I mean, I do think there are some geopolitical considerations. You know, the whole image, the whole vibe is all messed up right now. So definitely, I think that would have. Why don't you just call it the CCP New Year then, too? Well, why don't you call it the commie New Year? Why can't the Koreans call it the K-pop New Year? I actually think when it comes to the Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year disagreement, it's actually less to do. I do think geopolitics plays into a part of it, but it's more than just like Chinese things in a weird way. And to me, this is even worse on a more like personal basis. It's just that Chinese things are just viewed as outdated. Oh, it's just kind of like, man, those are the old days, man. That's whack. You mean if you call it Chinese New Year, then you are a synonym? I'm going to have a boring, unlit, like not fun life that's just maybe full of studying and some achievements, but it's just not tight. You mean a synonym for Chinese is not lit? Yeah, not lit. Hey, happy not lit New Year. Yeah, we made a whole video about this. I honestly think that it's bigger. I think the geopolitical thing plays into it, but it's a smaller slice of the reason pie. Moving on to number three, Andrew. I think a lot of it is just the history of immigration and pattern waves, you know, like Toisan people from Taishan, China came to America, Andrew, in large numbers in like 1880. So for about 70 years, the only like Asian-y looking people in America or the Western world were Chinese. So they kind of like were the only ones celebrating the lunar solar calendar. So they kind of like set the pace. And it's hard for some people to break away from that. You know, like it's hard to tell the clips, Andrew, that the guns ringing off is sounds like lunar new year, you know what I mean? No, I think I think the hood still going to call it Chinese New Year. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, I think that China being the biggest country being the most amount of people, the biggest diaspora, obviously, most people who are celebrating this new year across the world are going to be Chinese. Now, not to say that everybody does celebrate it different. I believe in Vietnam is three days. Korea is three days to be. I think China celebrates 15 days. I'll tell you this Chinese, it changes the whole country when they celebrate. You cannot get your cargo containers of the products you need. Like, oddly enough, though, I've been to multiple Chinese New Year parades and I've been to the Orange County Dutt Festival, the Vietnamese one. And I got to say, the Dutt one is lit. Now, maybe maybe they don't take as much time off in Vietnam. But I'll tell you this, the energy and the firecrackers and just the whole vibe is more energetic. More like a real party. It feels more like a real party. And that goes to speak to the stereotype or the archetype that Chinese things, you know, it's almost like, oh, man, we're going to call it the Henny New Year, man. Oh, man. But I do think that because of the historicalness, you start to see like Western companies and they want to sell all these products for LNY, right? Year of the Rabbit. There's Arturex has a collabo. Nike's got Air Force Ones, Dunks, Air Max, Scorpions, like every almost every hot shoe has got a Lunar New Year Rabbit. I think that some of them are going to call it LNY and some of them are going to call it CNY like they have been for like 30 years. Yeah. I mean, I think it also depends on they're going to they're going to try to look at the numbers and see how much of their audience is going to be actual Chinese buying it. And then how many is it like, you know, other people? Yeah. If they can get more money out of like rich Ford, I Chinese consumers, I think that generally that's the calculation they're going to make that I think about, you know, when I think about capitalistic companies. Moving on to number four, Andrew, this calling of Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year. It's even complicated for overseas Chinese. Yeah, because like in Malaysia, in Singapore, they're always going to call it Chinese New Year because they speak English there. And the other two groups that they're juxtaposed against are Malay and Indian. A lot of the Indians are Hindu. A lot of the Malays are Muslim, so they don't really celebrate it. So they're like, yeah, of course, it's Chinese New Year. Like only the Chinese celebrate it. Yeah, it's kind of an identity thing, because obviously when, you know, those Chinese have been in, for example, Malaysia for generations, they're already so disassociated with the Chinese government, like they've been separate from the Chinese government. So they don't even think about it that way. They're just thinking about it like, yeah, it is my Chinese heritage is the reason why I'm celebrating Chinese New Year. So I'm going to call it Chinese New Year. Plus, I'm speaking Chinese. All the celebrations are in Chinese. You eat Chinese food, you dress in the Chinese, you know, cheap how and things like that. So, yeah, so it's Chinese. Number five, Andrew, despite all the arguing, and I think the arguing does take place amongst like a small vocal minority of each group. I think most people are pretty chill. They're just like, dude, it doesn't matter, man. I'm just living. But I do think it would be cool if like we learn more. You know what I mean? That way you could avoid being like, hey, you guys celebrate it, too. And then people are like mad that you don't know that they celebrate it, too. I guess I've always been the biggest proponent of like Asians, at least looking up YouTube videos about how other Asian groups like celebrate the same things. Because we could see that we like share things or that we don't share things or that we do or that we don't. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I think especially for America, you know, such a mixed country with so many different types of Asians. It's not just Chinese people in America, obviously. So I think that even like I would like to see people celebrate like Seollal even a little bit bigger here. Because you don't see like the groups do it really. I think it's more of a personal thing. Yeah, it's more of a family thing. And I know that families do. But not even every Korean family does really celebrate it. Some celebrate it on a bigger scale and some on a lower scale. Maybe they'll just have a dinner together. But really, I would like to know, like, I think there should be some more cross cultural things. I think that would be cool. Obviously, we know Vietnamese do a pretty big. But, you know, maybe in New York, there's actually not that many Vietnamese. I would love to see the Vietnamese and Chinese maybe do something here. I mean, another question is due to like things that happened during the Cultural Revolution. Some of the spiritual or like ancestor incense aspects out of Chinese New Year were lessened. Should we bring those back? Because that's how it is in Malaysia. They're more leaned into the, you know what I mean, the Taoist or the Buddhist aspects. Yeah. I mean, to wrap this up, though, overall, I don't think a lot of people in person are very offended by this. I do think it's a lot of Internet comments that get very emotional. Like, I refuse to call it Chinese New Year. I will never call it Chinese New Year. I'm like, that's fine. Just, you know, I didn't know you felt that way about it, man. But nobody has that energy in person, of course. And I think overall, as long as you respect people and you're like, not trying to take anything away from other people. I'm not trying to take it away from Vietnam. I wouldn't take it away from Korea. Not Japanese. Anybody else that wants to celebrate, I would never tell them. No, bro, you're celebrating Chinese New Year. Don't you know? It's Chinese New Year. You got to say this. All the red. It comes from China. You know, well, this is like sounds, you know, such a stupid thing to get worked up about. Yeah. At least. But I do empathize, I guess, with other Asians that feel like, you know, because China is such a big country that has such a long history and it's so influential, especially moving forward for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years, they're feeling like it's hard to acknowledge their identities. Right? Yeah. But then also, on another hand, I'm just playing devil's advocate. A lot of Chinese people might be like, wow, you're trying to wipe out Chinese from the things that come from China. Like, if we're going to accept that COVID came from China, we probably should accept the lunar solar calendar possibly also came from China. Yeah. Who knows, man? I mean, it's definitely a complicated time. I think it's funny to joke about. I don't take it too serious, but I acknowledge there are some trivial and non-trivial dynamics that are affecting even out how this like naming debate plays out in America. Well, anyways, guys, please hit that like button. Let us know in the comments down below what you are personally going to call it. And maybe it even changes depending on who you're talking to. Right. That you let us know in the comments down below. Also, let us know how you're going to celebrate it, because it is coming up January 22nd. It's early this year. It's almost as early as it possibly could be. Man, it's crazy. It's just right on the heels of New Year. I got to give a shout out to Ronnie Chang because he got the hongbaos that say, I hope you get rich. Classic. All right, you guys, let us know what you think in the comments section below. Is it all blown out of argument? Are people just arguing to argue? Or are there really serious issues at play? Keep it civil. Until next time, we're the Hot Pop Boys. We out. Peace.