From ‘ What’s in a name?’, 15 Jan 2011, My Point, ST Forum
(PHUA KOK HENG): ‘Is there a move by government agencies and some commercial groups to rename the traditional ‘Chinese New Year’ celebration to ‘Spring Festival’? China used to be the only country to call the celebration Spring Festival. Other South-east Asian countries and Western cities with sizeable Chinese populations such as San Francisco, New York, London, Sydney and Vancouver all call it Chinese New Year. The real motive for the name change is unclear and perhaps the relevant authorities like the Singapore Tourism Board could explain.’
Not only is calling Chinese New Year ‘Spring Festival’ a climatic misnomer, but it also severely downplays the occasion from a joyous public holiday signifying renewal, prosperity and opportunity to patronising mediocrity where people go around wishing each other ‘Happy Spring Festival’ instead of the traditional resonance of ‘Happy (Chinese) New Year’, or gather around potted plants and eat peaches instead of reunion dinners and angpow collecting. Like old road names, you can’t just call for holidays so deeply entrenched in our national psyche to be renamed like how one would change light bulbs.
Chinese New Year was never just a ‘festival’ in most Singaporeans’ eyes, it’s the embodiment of all things that keep us filial, loving and generous, and to rename a holiday with such a rich, symbolic tradition is not only unnecessary, but a vile insult to the entire spirit of CNY as it’s celebrated here. It’s like calling Deepavali ‘Happy Indian Festival‘, Hari Raya ‘Ketupat festival’ or Christmas ‘The Nativity festival’. Or perhaps the rationale for renaming CNY is that it would resolve once and for all the deep mathematical paradox of how there can be two new years in one.
However, after finding an example of what the writer meant in the Sunday paper (see pic above), it occurred to me that is really more of a marketing gimmick summoning images of pretty pink peach blossoms rather than any indication of our future calendars being amended. It also brings out the point that we’ve all been using the term ‘spring’ cleaning without realising why. I suppose if one suspends hard logic and views ‘spring’ as a metaphor for new beginnings rather than a season, there’s actually little reason to fear CNY losing any of its traditional essence.
Filed under: 2011, Chinese New Year, Festivals, It Should Have Been.., Names, Public holidays Tagged: | Chinese New Year, festivals, Names
Not sure I understd the drift of this post. Are u agreeing or disagreeing with Phua Kok Heng? If u agree, why call him Methusalah? Actually, I think Spring Festival a great name… or don’t you know tt many well known singalong Chinese songs talk abt Chun Tian? We even have a Chun Tian Road at which e famous restaurant offering French fare Vis a Vis continues to tick along?
Cny should be left alone.Actually upon careful second reading, I think the writer is more for keeping it as CNY. Too used to seeing people ask for names to be changed.