Happy Lunar New Year From The Embassy Of Taiwan!

February tenth marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year celebrations for 2024. Every year, around this time, families come together to cultivate luck and good fortune for the New Year. This is an especially significant time of year for members of the Taiwanese community in Belize, who use this opportunity to commune and take part in their traditions together. We visited the embassy of Taiwan to hear how they are celebrating this year.

 

Jimmy Tseng, Secretary, Embassy of Taiwan

“Chinese New Year is also known as the Lunar New Year because it’s not just celebrated by the Chinese, it’s also celebrated by a lot of Asian countries. For example, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines; in these countries, because they all use used to use the lunar calendar, which is why that lunar New Year is also their national Holidays. So in these Asian countries, obviously including Taiwan , we all celebrated the Lunar New Year. So Lunar New Year is the inner ancient agricultural society is the only long vacation that people have that they can gather around with their families and hang out with their friends. Normally it lasts like one to two weeks, so people can have a proper rest and start fresh for New Year.”

 

Britney Gordon

“What are some of the traditions celebrated on this holiday?”

 

Jimmy Tseng

“So in this Lunar New Year holiday, in our tradition, that red is the auspicious color. So we use red to decorate our house, and we use the spring couplets to put it on the front door of our houses, and then to show people this is an auspicious place and also, that because today is the New Year’s Eve, and so the members of the family, they will go back to their parents house and then they unite for a out reunion dinner.”

 

Britney Gordon

“Being that so many of you are far away from your family members, what’s the significance of celebrating it here in Belize together?”

 

Jimmy Tseng

“It is really important that you can see that Belize is a multi ethnicity, multicultural society. We have the Creole, we have the Mayans, Latin people, Garifuna, and obviously the Asian community. So it is all these people that we live together in harmony, and then we have a diverse cultural and but it is also really important that we go back to our cultural roots and to keep our traditional cultural and this is, I believe, what makes Belize really special and very vibrant society.”