2019 Chinese New Year Festival in Falls Church: Live Performance, Delicious Food, Cultural Diversity and Much More

For the last 12 years, Washington DC area based Asian Community Service Center (ACSC) has been hosting an annual celebration of the Chinese New Year. The main purpose of this celebration is twofold: to promote traditional Chinese culture and to enrich the diversity of the existing multi-cultural local communities. As of last year, the number of participants of the Chinese New Year Festival reached 4,000, making it the largest scale celebration event of Chinese traditional culture in the DC metropolitan area.

The 12th Annual Chinese New Year Festival will be held for one day by ACSC, on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019 (snow day alternative: Feb. 10). There will be live performance, including dragon and lion dances and Han costume fashion show, delicious Asian food, the calligraphy and writing of Chinese names, riddles and raffles, craft and business booths, children activities, as well as a lunar New Year dragon parade. Time and location are 10am to 6pm at Luther Jackson Middle School, 3020 Gallows Road, Falls Church, VA 22042. Admission and parking are free.

 

As one of the world’s most prominent and celebrated festivals, Chinese New Year is a major holiday in China and has strongly influenced the Lunar New Year celebrations of China’s neighboring cultures, including the Korean New Year, the Tet of Vietnam, and the Losar of Tibet. It is also celebrated worldwide in countries with significant overseas Chinese populations, such as Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia as well as many countries in North America and Europe.

 

Chinese New Year is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional Chinese lunar calendar. The festival is usually referred to as the Spring Festival in modern China. Observances traditionally take place from the evening preceding the first day of the year till the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between January 21 and February 20. In 2019, the first day of the Lunar New Year will be on Tuesday, 5 February, initiating the Year of the Pig, one of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals.

 

Within China, while regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the New Year vary widely, there are some commonalities in the customs. For example, the evening preceding Chinese New Year’s Day is frequently regarded as an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean their house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for good luck in a new year. Another custom is the decoration of windows and doors with red paper-cuts and couplets. Popular themes among these paper-cuts and couplets include that of good fortune or happiness, wealth, and longevity. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes.

 

However, Chinese New Year is not only an occasion for family reunion and celebration, but also a time to honor deities and ancestors and to appreciate the traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, one traditional Chinese value every year is selected by ACSC as the theme of the Chinese New Year celebration. Since 2019 is the Year of the Pig and pigs were kept indoors with house owner in ancient China, which explains why the Chinese character of “family” has a pig inside a house. Therefore, “family” was selected this year by ACSC as the celebration theme for the 2019 Chinese New Year Festival.