How netizens are giving modern makeovers to traditional New Year greetings
The Lunar New Year countdown is always an exciting time in China, but perhaps never more so than during the Year of the Rabbit, with most of the country traveling back to their hometowns to spend the Spring Festival (春节 Chunjie) with their families, the first time for many since the pandemic started.
This means it’s time to brush up on some New Year vocabulary one might have forgotten in the last three years, and learn some new twists netizens have given to this time-honored tradition.
As China’s biggest holiday, the Lunar New Year is a crucial season for sending special greetings and best wishes to everyone in your acquaintance, even people whom you haven’t seen for a long time. With electric communication, “greeting text messages (拜年短信 bàinián duǎnxìn)” have come into fashion, making for the most commonly received copy-pasted messages on WeChat during this period.
Traditional greeting messages always contain the current year’s zodiac, so the rabbit takes center stage this year:
Zhang Wenjie is a contributing writer at The World of Chinese. She loves to share the lifestyles, voices, and concerns of China’s Gen Z. She is also fond of collecting and displaying the flourishing slang expressions in the Chinese language.
