Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-15
Nlong With tile CampaignAgainSt ''Pigtalls"
for Men and Bound Feet for Women, the
Republic IS Trying TO Stop the Celebration
of the old Chinese Ne7y Year, February
16--but the People Go on Observing 1t in
Secret

Chinese house can imagine what the mere
annual housecleaning alone amounts to.
Anyway. the old paper picture OF the Kitchen
God which has been hung over the oven for
IL months, is burned with sweet intoxicants,
SO that the deity will be groggy and genial
when he goes up in smoke to deliver the house
holds accounts to heaven, and new god is
instalad for the new year.
To do all this on January first right in the
middle OF Winter, is obviously all out of
harmony with the spirit of the occasion. No
one wants to give feast in freezing weather.
or don new dress in midseason, or clean house
whcn tiIe coal stoves are still up. As Occi-
dentas themselves have learned to their own
Inconvenience, January first really starts
nothing but a artificial calendar, while
the Chinese New Year actually marks the be-
ginning of a new season.
No one can live in North China for any length
of time without noting how well the Chinese
lunar calendar is suited to the actual weather
conditions of the country. When the ancient
sch1dulc reports that the year is due you
may be sure that the worst Of the Winter is
over You can confidently expect sizzling days.
And when the native calendar notes that it is
the time for the Big Rains the Chipping
Insects one may be certain that floods and
bugs viii surely come.
PUT now the government declares that the
calendar and the prayers are both non
sense out of step with the rest of the world
and unbecoming to the dignity of the Republic
Of China. The officials point out that mod
ernized Japan has abandoned the ancient cal
endar which it adopted from China, and they
insist that China must give it UP also.
The Nationalist government at Marking, out
wardly the most progressive administration
which Republican China has ever had is par
ticularly determined that its citizens must give
up their old system of reckoning time, and
now it has even forbidden the publication of
the ancient lunar calendar which has served
the people for 40 centuries.
This is very serious matter for China, for
not only is the weather thus put all awry but
all the religious festivals fall on the wrong days
In the time of the empire the issuing of the
old calendar was very solemn affair and its
religious significance was great. Delegates of
the Emperor assembled at the official entrance
of the purple Forbidden City, the grandest of
all the palace gates and with much pomp de-
livered the calendar for the new year to repre-
sentatives of all the provinces Of China and of
all its vaSsal states. Its bestowal was a mark
of honor and it was highly appreciated by loyal
subjects.
Thus blessed by the reigning monarch, the
very Son of Heaven, the calendar set the time
for the famous Dragon Boat and Mid-Autumn
festivals, which rank next in Importance only
to the New Year itself, and also marked the
days for temple prayers throughout the land.
Last year Feng Yu-hsiang, the former
Christian General ordered the citizens of his
district to spend their money on painting and
repairing their homes when the new year
opened, instead of more extravagant and
ephemeral frecrackers and incense and, more
over, he insisted that his work be done to cele-
brate January first not the middle Of February.