Chinese New Year: Quick Facts

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year! Here are some quick facts for you:

It marks the first day of the New Year on the Chinese calendar. (Tomorrow is the first day of the year 4717.) But you might also hear it referred to as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival.
The Lunar New Year will also be celebrated by Vietnam and South Korea tomorrow. It's basically the most important holiday in those countries.
It's a different day each year. It's almost always celebrated during the second new moon after the Winter Solstice usually between January 21st and February 20th.
Just like our horoscope has 12 zodiac signs with one for each month, there are 12 Chinese zodiacs as well, but the animal is for the entire year. Tomorrow begins the Year of the Rat. Next year will be the ox. It's currently the Year of the Pig.
A couple things you're not supposed to do on Chinese New Year are: no sweeping or taking out the trash, because it's like sweeping wealth away and dumping out good fortune. Washing your hair supposedly washes away your good luck too.
On the other hand, some things that are ENCOURAGED tomorrow are: lighting fireworks, wearing red, gifting people cash in red envelopes, and eating dumplings.

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