Chinese New Year is not, strictly speaking, a Buddhist holiday. However, Chinese Buddhists do begin the New Year with religious observation.
In today's New York Times, Ann Farmer describes New Year activities at a Chinatown temple. Nuns and volunteers at the American Society for Buddhist Studies in Manhattan cleaned every inch of their temple. They also prepared vegetarian food for the huge numbers of people who will come to the temple today to offer incense and prayers for the coming year.
Farmer writes that "people stand in line for hours in the cold," to enter the temple, "bowing first to the plump Buddha that sits at the entrance surrounded by glowing candles and offerings of oranges."This is also the beginning of the New Year for Vietnamese, Koreans, and Tibetans.
Photo Credit: © Photographer: Stuart Corlett | Agency: Dreamstime.com
Chinese New Year starts on February 14. But the year of the Metal Tiger starts on February 4, that means the year of the Ox ends on February 3. This is because the Chinese New Year follows the Lunar calendar whereas fengshui and destiny of life follows the Solar calendar and has been practised for over 3000 years in China. Chinese people celebrates Winter Solstice, and this follows the Solar calendar too. Specifically the year of the Tiger starts on February 3 at 11.00pm. This is because the Chinese day starts at 11.00pm and are always in blocks of 2 hours. So if you are born on 10.30pm Feb 3rd, you are Ox and if born at 11.30pm, you are Tiger.