The blue skies of the past week were announcing the arrival of this year’s Spring Festival.
The last two weeks have seen the beginning of the big departure as Nanjing’s migrant workers started flocking out of the city into their hometowns in surrounding provinces or even further afield. The travel rush started two weeks prior to the actual new year this year as many workers who live far away from their families are eager to spend some time with parents, partners and offspring. Approximately 280 million people embark on Spring Festival travels throughout the country, pushing the limits of the Chinese transport system at this busiest time of the entire year.
2015 Spring Festival One Of Latest In History
Since Chinese timekeeping takes two calendar systems into consideration, the Gregorian calendar common in the Western world and the lunar calendar, also known as farming calendar in Chinese. The latter breaks down a month into approximately 29.5 days and a year into 354 or 355 days, up to 11 days shorter than the Western calendar. In order to coordinate both timelines more efficiently, a “leap month” was introduced to the lunar calendar; if the previous year did not include a leap month, Chinese New Year will occur eleven days earlier than the previous year, otherwise it will be pushed to a later date. In 2014, the lunar calendar saw a “leap September”, meaning that last year actually featured two months of September based on the Chinese calendar.
Hence, this year’s festivities have been pushed backwards by 19 days compared to last year. Historically speaking, the latest possible date for Chinese New Year is the 20th February, hence the 2015 calendar is only one day short of the latest possible date. Throughout the last century such a late date has only occurred on two other occasions, in 1939 and 1996. The next late New Year will not happen for another 19 years until 2034. The earliest date for New Year in the history of China was 21st January 1966, when the celebrations occurred almost a month prior to this year’s date.
Will the Year of the Sheep see lower birth rate?
According to Chinese customs every year is assigned one of the twelve zodiac animals, ranging from dragon over rat to dog. Each year is assigned a Chinese zodiac until in the thirteenth year the whole system starts anew. The Chinese New Year 2015 sees the departure of the year of the horse, a very auspicious animal in Chinese culture, and the arrival of the year of the sheep. There is a lot of superstition attached to the sheep in certain parts of China. Every zodiac has certain characteristics associated with it. In Chinese eyes, sheep are meek, raised for nothing more than slaughter. People born in the year of the sheep will, based on their character, grow up to be followers rather than leaders. The fact that they are considered kind does not help either, as they lack qualities helpful to success in business, and an unsuccessful life is a wasted life in many a Chinese person’s opinion. To make matters worse, sheep are considered destined for heartbreak and failed marriages. A popular Chinese proverb states that only one out of 10 people born in the year of the sheep will find happiness. One Chinese custom even holds that if two sheep want to get married, they are not allowed to do so in the year of the sheep as this would mean bad luck to their marriage; hence any double sheep combinations would have hurried up and tied the knot before the auspicious year of the horse runs out.
Whenever the sheepish year draws near, media launch into a frenzy about the effect this Chinese superstition is having on birth rates. Countless reports surface suggesting that potential parents are either trying to squeeze in a pregnancy before the year of the lamb, or try and push the Cesarian to a pre-sheep date. Li Jianjun, an obstetrician at Beijing’s Untied Family Hospital told local media that a high number of patients requested an early delivery via Cesarian in order to guarantee their child will be a horse. In Yangshuo, reports surfaced that births in the year of the sheep have been three times lower than in the following year of the monkey in the past. Yunnan province had to apply for an additional supply of blank birth certificates, due to the number of high births apparently related to the superstition, while in Guiyang, Guizhou province, a number of hospitals have reportedly stopped issuing birth certificates as the year of the horse is drawing to a close. The Liaoning Daily reported that the number of births in 2014 had gone up by 30 percent compared to the previous year, linking the increase to the fear of a sheep child. An online survey conducted in May 2014 by People.cn seems to corroborate the suggestion that the zodiacs and popular belief in relation to them are influencing national birth rates. The results indicated that 52 percent of 2000 participants would actively try to evade having a child during this fateful year.
Yet, it seems that local media outlets are fooling readers into believing this is a national phenomenon when in truth it seems quite the opposite is the case. A quick look at the annual birth rates of the years of horse, sheep and monkey reveals that the Chinese nation is not quite as prone to folk beliefs as the media would have us all think. In 1990 – 1992, consecutive birth rates were 23.9 million, 22.58 million and 21.19 million; so while the year of the horse was more popular than 1991, the year of the sheep, that in turn totalled more births than the following year of the monkey (another auspicious year, think Monkey King). At the end of the 70s, the year of the sheep indeed showed lower birth rates than its precursor and successor; however, the numbers varied only marginally, making up a difference of merely 3 percent compared with the year of the monkey in 1980 and just 1 percent compared to the 1978 year of the horse.
Overall, it seems the nation need not be worried that they will run out of children this year; and if they do, at least the sheep’s parents can take comfort in the fact that their children will have less competition in entering universities and jobs when their time comes.
Modern Ways of Celebrating Tradition
One may think of the sheep what one may, the enthusiasm for the upcoming Spring Festival celebrations has been growing exponentially, as companies and institutions alike are finding more and more creative and modern ways of welcoming the new year. Flight attendants from China Eastern Airlines staged a flash mob at Nanjing Lukou International Airport on 2nd February to in honour of the commencement of the travel rush. Elsewhere, in Lianyungang city, nearly five hundred students composed a 80-meters long Chinese character of “sheep” with their bodies on a playground. These are only two examples of all the exciting activities we can forward to over the coming two weeks. Enjoy the celebration!
