Most countries in the world use the Gregorian calendar, but many also have their own. Bangladesh has the Bangla calendar, whose use in towns is more or less limited to Pohela Boishakh and Pohela Falgun, though in villages Bangla dates are still more or less in use; many farmers in particular keep track of them. Much the same is true of China. Chinese cities run on the Gregorian calendar all year, and the local calendar is consulted only for festivals. Villages are different: there the local calendar is still relatively valued.

Bangla dates are now fixed in Bangladesh. Pohela Boishakh used to fall on 13, 14 or 15 April depending on the year, but now the first month of the Bangla year, Boishakh, begins on 14 April every year by rule. China's own calendar, however, is lunar, and the first day of the Chinese new year does not follow Gregorian dates. It usually falls between 21 January and 20 February.

The Chinese calendar originated in the Xia dynasty, which is why it is called the "Xia calendar". It is used for farming and for festivals. Each year is divided not into months but into 24 solar terms. The first is "Li Chun", meaning "beginning of spring", and the last is "Da Han", meaning "great cold", with 22 more in between, each with its own characteristics. Since ancient times the Chinese have organised their daily activities, especially farming, according to the solar terms, and the names alone show what the weather will be like in each part of the year. The Chinese also change their food and clothing according to the solar terms, though this applies more to rural areas.

According to the Xia calendar, today (29 January 2025) is the first day of the new year; put another way, it is the most important day of China's Spring Festival, which lasts until the 15th day of the first month of the new year. In the Bangla calendar Boishakh is the first month, while in the Chinese calendar spring is the first season of the year. Bangladesh has six seasons, spring among them, but China has only four: spring (Chun Tian), summer (Xia Tian), autumn (Qiu Tian) and winter (Dong Tian).

We welcome the Bangla new year by celebrating Pohela Boishakh, but it is not our main festival. The Chinese, however, celebrate the first day of the year in their calendar as the "Spring Festival", their biggest festival. In Chinese it is called "Chun Jie", and celebrating it is called "Guo Nian". Just as we greet each other with "Happy New Year", the Chinese exchange greetings too, in their own words: on the first day of the new year they say "Guo Nian Hao" (happy Spring Festival) and "Gong Xi Fa Cai" (may more money come in the new year).

The Chinese celebrate the Spring Festival with great fanfare. Just as crowds of people head from the cities to their villages in Bangladesh at Eid, hundreds of millions in China leave the cities for their villages at the Spring Festival, because its core spirit is the reunion of all members of the family.

In Bangladesh there is the custom of salami at Eid: children greet their elders with salaam and receive money. In China too, children receive money in red envelopes from their elders at the Spring Festival. During the festival the Chinese clean their homes, eat various delicacies, wear new clothes, hang colourful paper and pictures with good wishes on their doors, and eat a special food called dumplings.

The dumplings are cooked on the night before the first day of the new year, the last night of the old year. The last day of the old year is called "Chu Xi", and the main Spring Festival actually begins on the night of Chu Xi. Family members stay up all night chatting and cooking dumplings and other food. Staying awake all night to wait for the new year is called "Shou Sui" in Chinese.

The Spring Festival has been celebrated in China since ancient times, and its origin lies in a legend. Long ago there was a terrible monster called "Nian". On the last night of every year it came out of its lair and ravaged farmers' fields. People would go far away before that night to escape it. Once, the monster came to wreak havoc but fled in terror itself, because one family, knowingly or not, had discovered how to frighten it.

That night the family hung red banners on their door and set off firecrackers. Seeing the red banners and hearing the firecrackers, the monster ran away. On the last night of the next year nobody fled; instead, like that family, they hung red banners on their doors and set off firecrackers. This went on every year, and the monster was never seen again. Needless to say, it is after this mythical monster "Nian" that the Spring Festival is called "Guo Nian" in Chinese.

The monster Nian is long gone, but the festival lives on, and the Chinese still perform the rituals meant to frighten it. Some may do so out of belief, while many regard them simply as tradition. Here too there is a difference between town and village: firecrackers are hardly set off in cities these days, but they are in villages. When I first came to China in 2012, the Spring Festival meant to me the deafening noise of firecrackers. My first Spring Festival in China, twelve and a half years ago, was full of them.

That year, firecrackers began going off almost everywhere in Beijing after the last evening of the old year of the Chinese lunar calendar. As midnight approached, they multiplied. I went out at midnight, and my ears kept ringing from the noise of all kinds of firecrackers, which went on almost all night. Later the Chinese government, to reduce pollution, began gradually cutting the use of firecrackers during the Spring Festival. Now they are hardly heard in Beijing, and much the same applies to other cities. In villages, though, firecrackers still go off at the Spring Festival, and those of us in cities make do with watching videos of them on social media.

Firecrackers or not, the new year has come to Beijing as to the rest of China. Its formal name is the "Year of the Snake". Under the Chinese lunar calendar, or Xia calendar, each year is named after an animal: twelve animals for twelve years, and the animals are fixed. They are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. The previous year was the "Year of the Dragon", and the next will be the "Year of the Horse". Each year returns every twelve years; the Year of the Snake will come again in twelve years, and it last came in 2013.

The Chinese generally believe that a person's personality depends on the year in which they were born, and that the traits of that animal will be seen in their character. For example, everyone born in the new year will have the snake as their Chinese zodiac sign; all children born this year will be "snake children", and their character will generally reflect the snake's traits.

In Chinese the snake is called "Xiao Long", or little dragon. In China the dragon is a symbol of dignity, and Chinese attitudes to the snake are also very positive. They believe children born in the Year of the Snake will be flexible, independent-minded, determined, talented, tactful, endowed with leadership and brave. Interestingly, Mao Zedong, the first top leader of New China, and today's top leader Xi Jinping were both born in the Year of the Snake, in 1893 and 1953 respectively by the Gregorian calendar.

Those born in the Year of the Snake will generally be brave. Yet however brave they are, exactly twelve years later, when the Year of the Snake returns, they will fear it. The Chinese generally believe that the return of one's zodiac year is not auspicious and that people of that sign may face various misfortunes that year. To ward them off, they wear red clothes that year. So if you see someone wearing a lot of red this year, you can assume they were born in a Year of the Snake.

A reader may ask why, of all the animals in nature, these particular twelve were chosen to name the years of the Chinese calendar. Some may go further: why is there a rat but no cat? And why does the rat come first? The answers lie in another legend, with which I will end. Thousands of years ago, the Emperor of Heaven announced that twelve animals would be chosen to mark the zodiac years, through a contest: the first twelve animals to reach an appointed place after the announcement would be chosen.

The ox, ever hard-working, set off as soon as it heard the announcement. The clever rat quietly climbed onto the ox's back, and being so light, the ox never noticed. Just before reaching the appointed place, the rat jumped down from the ox, dashed ahead and took first place. The poor ox came second, and the pig took the last place. But the cat got no place at all, because the sleepy cat was asleep when the contest was announced. In those days the cat and the rat were good friends, but the rat went off to the contest without waking the cat. Ever since, the cat has been the rat's sworn enemy.

The writer is news editor at China Media Group (CMG).

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.