Facts and Froth Jill Lowe
Lunar New Year Celebrations & Chunyun (the world’s largest annual human migration)
Celebrated in several Asian countries, the New Year or Spring Festival in 2024 will mark the end of the Year of the Rabbit and the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, being driven by the Zodiac chart. It falls on different dates each year, based on lunar phases, solstices and equinoxes. Three overarching themes of Lunar New Year are “fortune, happiness and health” Traditionally New Year celebration, dating back 3500 years, was a time to honor deities as well as ancestors, today is focussed on the family reunions. Thus, at the holiday time many millions of Chinese nationals travel to family (some statistics cite 2.1 billion domestic journeys, with some predictions for 2024 to be 6 billion visits). Very often workers in large cities return to their primary families where grandparents have been raising their children for the previous year. This migration or spring travel rush is known as chunyun.