Fun fact: China didn’t celebrate the Lunar New Year for 37 years

Few people know that China used to suspend the Lunar New Year - the most important festival in this country - for 37 years to switch to celebrating New Year like Western countries. In 1911,

broke out, was , causing to collapse. A year later, (1866-1925) took office as .

As someone who was greatly influenced by the Western education system and culture, especially England, Sun Yat-sen was determined to

China. Sun Yat-sen advocated abolishing the Lunar New Year, forcing Chinese people to celebrate Tet according to . January 1, 1912 was set by Sun Yat-sen as the starting point of the Republic of China. The Government decided to abolish the lunar calendar and apply the calculation of days according to the solar calendar nationwide.

After many conflicts within the central government as well as a civil war, along with successive unsuccessful efforts of the government to call on society to celebrate Tet according to the solar calendar, in 1949 when the civil war ended and victory belonged to

, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party announced the resumption of the Lunar New Year festival. We can see that even a country with a rich history associated with the Lunar New Year like China has experienced amazing ups and downs in terms of celebrating this festival.

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