Chap Goh Mei

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Why do you say that Malaysian women celebrate “Chinese” New Year? Presumably they are celebrating Malaysian New Year, with Malaysian traditions. Christians around the world celebrate Christmas, not “United States Christmas” just because the US is big and powerful. Let’s not passively support Chinese persecution of and tyranny over the traditions of other Asian nations. Your phrasing here legitimizes Chinese imperialism. That’s why Tibetans are being tortured for having a picture of the Dalai Lama. You (and your editors) can do better.

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23% of Malaysians are ethnically Chinese. Chinese New Years are celebrated in a lot of other Southeast Asian countries that have significant ethnic Chinese populations, like Singapore, The Philippines, and Indonesia. Many non-ethnic Chinese happily participate in the celebrations as well.

Source: I’m half Chinese half Indonesian who spent half of my life in Indonesia.


Why than Viatnemese celebrate Chinese new year does anybody know?

Vietnam was under the Chinese rule for 1000 years, from 111 BC to 938 AD. That’s why the Vietnamese culture is pretty heavily influenced by the Chinese culture.


Probably should correctly be described as “Lunar” New Year, which is recognized throughout Asia vs. the Gregorian (western) calendar New Year.

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Why would this be more “correct”? This is an article about a tradition that is celebrated in Malaysia. In Malaysia, everyone calls it Chinese New Year. It’s always abbreviated as “CNY”, and I doubt anyone would even know what “LNY” means if they saw it.

I’m not sure if this post is a joke, but are you suggesting that 28 million Malaysians should stop calling it Chinese New Year?

Literally everyone here calls it that, and I can’t speak for all 28 million, but not a single person I’ve ever talked to associates CNY with Chinese imperialism.

“Malaysian New Year” literally doesn’t exist… it’s not a thing. Calling this celebration “Malaysian New Year” would be met with bafflement, and could potentially be insulting to millions of non-Chinese Malaysians (e.g. Malay and ethnic Indian), who make up about 77% of the Malaysian population.