Celebrating Lunar New Year

Beginning Saturday, Jan 15 and ending Sunday Feb. 5, Lunar New Year is celebrated in various countries across Asia in alignment with the lunar calendar. 2023 marks the year of the rabbit and begins with the first new moon and ends on the first full moon. For Asian and Asian Americans the new year is a time for reconnecting with family and welcoming in the new year positively.

STORY CLEMENTINE EVANS, KAHLEN MIAO, & LINDA YUN ILLUSTRATIONS & PAGE DESIGN ALLISON LEE & ELLIE NAKAMURA

Chinese Zodiac mythology

In Chinese mythology there are 12 animals in the Zodiac, chosen for the zodiac through a race. Animals in the Chinese zodiac are assigned to different years of birth, recurring every 60 years, and have different traits and beliefs associated with each.

The animals of the zodiac are concurrent with another system known as the “Twelve Earthly Branches” or the “Ten Heavenly Stems” based on five classical elements: metal/gold, wood, water, fire, and earth. These elements are also assigned to be yin or yang and thus creates a ten year cycle.

Many variations of the “Great Race” myth exist, however, the main premise of the story remains the same. The Jade Emperor organized a race to find a way to divide time properly. The rat is the first to finish the race, tricking the ox into helping him cross a river who then finishes second. The tiger, rabbit, dragon, and snake then finished respectively. The sheep, monkey, and rooster work together to cross the stream and finish in that order. Lastly the dog and the pig cross the river.

The Chinese zodiac famously does not have a cat in its cycle, however in the place of the year of the rabbit, Vietnam celebrates the year of the cat while it is the year of the mousedeer in the Malaysian zodiac.

Being the fourth of twelve zodiacs, the rabbit is associated with the traits of being kind, gentle, and skillful. These traits are generally the same across the different elemental aspects of the rabbit. 2023 is elementally the year of the water rabbit.

Monterey Park tragedy

The community of Monterey Park was struck by a mass shooting on Saturday, Jan. 11, taking the lives of 11 people and injuring nine others. This massacre was the country’s fifth mass killing of 2023. The shooter, identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being chased down by law enforcement on Sunday, Jan. 22, Lunar New Year day in Alhambra, California.

The shooting took place at a dance studio at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, in Monterey Park on Saturday, Jan. 21 around 10:20 p.m. Multiple students of South Pasadena High School and the greater South Pasadena community have been affected by the shooting. Monterey Park and the Star Ballroom Dance Studio hold a close connection to Asian members of the community.

“I used to take Latin dance classes there [almost] every weekend for almost three to four years. At that time, I was preparing for a competition for gold, but that got cut short because of the pandemic,”

Senior Rachel Liao said.“...[After the pandemic], I just did not feel like I wanted to get back there. On Lunar New Year, I saw it on the news. The headline only said “A Monterey Park Lunar New Year tragedy”.

When Liao heard of the shooting on the news, she was devastated. Like many others who had connections to the local studio, she did not know how to react.

“At first I did [not] want to believe that it was the ballroom I was at,” Liao said. “I was really hurt by it…I just started bawling my eyes out. One of the victims was the owner [of the dance studio] and I knew him really well. I remember dancing with him for a little while. He was like a grandpa to me.”

Senior George Hong-Sheng was also a member of the Star Ballroom Dance Studio and was devastated to hear the news of the shooting.

“It really hit [hard] knowing where it happened, because it had been somewhere I was exceedingly familiar with, the floors and mirrors, the entrance and the restaurants next to it,” Hong-Sheng said. “...being connected to the place somehow made it feel all the more surreal… before I knew the location I felt sympathetic, but it kind of [aligned with] other shootings that happened previously, but hearing that it was somewhere I [would go] to regularly [made me feel] pretty uneasy.”

Lunar New Year celebrations have been mixed with memorials for the recent shootings in Monterey Park and at Half Moon Bay.

The Tiger Established

1913

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ANIKA EBBERT

MANAGING EDITORS

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COPY

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