Chinese New Year

Today is Chinese New Year. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Taiwanese people celebrated new year last night. Most of my Asian colleagues were also celebrating new year at work today.

But Japanese people do not celebrate Chinese new year.

I personally have never cerebrated Chinese new year, but I know we (Japanese) used to celebrate this day. Until the 1950's, Japanese people used to celebrate new year twice, on January first and on Chinese new year day. However, during the 1960s, Japanese economy advanced very rapidly and people noticed that they could not afford to celebrate new year twice (They were getting too busy at work). People then decided to focus on January first and forget about Chinese calender.

I was born in the middle of 1970's. Therefore, I do not know anything about the Chinese calender. Today, Asian friends blamed me that we (Japanese people) are forgetting important traditions. But friends, it is totally not my fault because I was not born yet when Japanese people changed it.