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Lunar New Year traditions through the lens of three photographers

Feb 13, 2024, 23:24 IST
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Caroline's group of friends laugh while eating a Chinese New Year dinner together.Caroline Xia
  • We asked three photographers to document their Lunar New Year celebrations.
  • Celebrations typically include traditions to bring prosperity and fortune into the new year.
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Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, is celebrated in East Asian countries, including China, South Korea, and Vietnam.

Beginning with the first new moon of the lunar calendar and ending on the full moon, celebrations typically consist of traditions to bring prosperity and fortune into the new year with loved ones.

We asked three photographers to document how they celebrate the holiday with loved ones, from gathering for dinner with traditional Chinese dishes, adorning their home with decorations, and paying respects to ancestors and late relatives.

Caroline Xia

Xia is a photographer and filmmaker born and raised in Queens, New York. Their work focuses on amplifying stories about East Asian Americans and children of immigrants in vibrant ways. Xia documented their Lunar New Year's dinner that they hosted with their sibling and a few close friends.

Leslie pours seasoned hot oil over a whole steamed fish.Caroline Xia

They have a tradition of hanging decorations around their front door to bring good wishes for the new year. They also cooked traditional Lunar New Year dishes, including whole steamed fish with hot seasoned oil on top, roast duck, fried noodles, fried pork dumplings, yu-choy, and tomato and egg.

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"The recipes all come from my grandma," Xia said. "We watched my grandma cook for us growing up and tried to absorb as much as we could. We will still call her while cooking to ask her questions about her recipes and techniques."

"The fish is the most important part for us because my grandma includes this for every Chinese New Year dinner; it feels like the centerpiece of the meal," they added. "The point is that the fish must be a whole fish to symbolize abundance."

Leslie hangs up a Chinese New Year door couplet sign on the side of their front doorway.Caroline Xia

Ramona Jingru Wang

Wang is a contemporary photographer based in New York City. Her work explores how images intervene with our reality and create connections among people and space, investigating how we care for each other through photography.

Wang will be celebrating the Lunar New Year with her friends.

"We are going to make a coconut chicken broth hotpot at home, and we are also going to a karaoke bar to sing Chinese songs," she said. "My family and I always love to have hotpot on holidays because it is simple to cook for a big group of people, and everyone gets to pick what they want to eat."

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"The coconut chicken broth hotpot that we had this year originates from Hainan, southern China, where it is famous for their seashores and mountain chickens," Wang continued. "I grew up in southern China, so it was a very common option for hotpot when I was a kid."

Hainan Coconut Broth Hotpot being served in a bowl.Ramona Jingru Wang

Wang said Lunar New Year is important to her because it allows her to connect with family and friends through a shared cultural experience.

"Celebrating Lunar New Year allows me to connect with my family and friends, and usually it is a time of nostalgia and remembrance of both of our personal and collective past growing up in our shared culture," Wang said. "The celebration and sharing of my culture with my community makes me feel grounded and that I belong to something that's larger than myself alone."

A Lunar New Year greeting card drawn by Meiting.Ramona Jingru Wang

Her favorite tradition is to watch the live broadcast of the Spring Festival Celebration Gala on TV on New Year's Eve.

"It's a television performance program that every Chinese family watches at the same time," she said. "Even though the performances usually cringe, I thought it's a very strange and beautiful feeling to experience with a billion people all together in one night."

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Friends enjoying hotpot while watching the popular Taiwanese TV Show, "Kangsi Coming."Ramona Jingru Wang

Sam Lee

Lee is a Chinese American documentary photographer in New York City. Through photography and writing, she explores religious expressions, their intersection with politics, and topics of human rights, social justice, and heritage.

Lee documented her time at the home of her uncle, Szuning Lee, in Chinatown for the Lunar New Year. She described her connection to Chinatown, where her father and uncle were raised and her grandmother owned a fabric store on Mulberry Street.

"I think of my family's roots here as a gift I hope to build upon, and I want to make my home here by creating my own community and finding a place in others," she said.

Lee said her favorite part of the holiday is "bringing friends together and sharing in my culture is so special to me, even as I keep learning about it myself."

"It's a time when I feel so at home in New York," she said. "These things also make me feel close to my Chinese grandmothers and make me think of the experiences and qualities we've shared."

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Szuning's altar for his parents and Buddhist deities.Sam Lee

Burning incense and laying out the altars is Szuning's favorite tradition for the New Year.

"It always makes me feel like the process and act provided a pathway to my parents and ancestors. This is what my mother instilled in us," he said.

He described how he set up his altar with fruits, pastries, a chicken, and roast pork to honor his parents and Buddhist deities.

"I will start off the day by lighting incense and offering prayers to my parents," Szuning said. "I will ask them and the Buddhist deities for their protection, granting of good health, longevity, prosperity, luck, and happiness for my son, his mother, my brother- and sister-in-law, my three nieces, my sister-in-law's family, cousins, and of course, my friends and loved ones."

Szuning offering prayers in front of the altar.Sam Lee

"Perhaps it's silly, but from the time I was a child, I would take the time to list everyone, one by one, who I thought of asking the Buddhas and now my parents to grant their protection over," he added. "I was afraid if I missed someone that something bad would happen to them and that somehow I was responsible, so this was the one thing I made sure I did with care. I would add to the list throughout the day as I thought of someone else."

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Szuning in his apartment in Chinatown.Sam Lee

"We didn't celebrate Christmas, so this was our Christmas," Szuning said, recalling his childhood memories of Lunar New Year. "It was the one day we could be Chinese and not feel like we were on the outside."

He added: "Most importantly, it was also the only day my brother and I got to skip school."

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