Each year, the Trinity Long Room Hub hosts 44 researchers from all over the world, including PhD candidates from mainland China, Hong Kong and South Korea. We asked some them how they would usually celebrate, and what they will be doing differently this year.
Bowen Wang, a second-year PhD student in the School of English, is from Zhengzhou, in the Henan Province of China.
Celebrating on Chinese Lunar New Year’s Eve, Bowen highlights the reunion dinner feast that he usually enjoys with family members. “Homemade dumplings will be the ‘main course’, stuffed with pork mince and Chinese cabbage as my familial favourite”. He also highlights “an array of crispy fried food customary in northern China, including meatballs, pork tenderloin, sliced eggplants, folders of lotus root, and ribbonfish.” Bowen adds that the taste of local food for him “is always inscribed with a strong feeling of nostalgia.”
This year, however, Bowen spent “Chuxi” (the Spring Festival’s Eve) in his room in Dublin “reading Henry James’ The Jolly Corner in preparation for a seminar the next day, while no doubt dreaming of some homemade dumplings. 
Professor Isabella Jackson is Assistant Professor in Chinese History at Trinity and was one of the speakers at the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies event to mark Chinese Lunar New Year. ‘A Good Year to Found a Republic: The Year of the Ox, 1949’ took place on the eve of Spring Festival, on the 11 February, with fellow-Trinity panellists Dr Ning Jiang and Dr Peter Hamilton. The discussion is available to watch here and further below.
Dr Jackson said that she would be recreating the tradition of eating dumplings on Lunar New Year's day by engaging in the communal eating of dumplings via Zoom with her PhD students.
Xi-Ning Wang is a PhD candidate in Trinity’s School of Education. She highlights the significant difference between the north and south of China in terms of traditional celebrations. In her home province of Sichuan, located in the southwest part of China, next to Tibet, the dumplings are replaced by the famous Sichuan cuisine, consisting of Mapo Tofu, Kung Pao Chicken, Couple Lung Tablets, Pickled Fish, and Dongpo Pig Knuckle, and the more well-known Sichuan hot pot. On the first day of the New Year, Xi-Ning says that families will go to the New Year market to “buy Spring Couplets for the doors and gates” and, alluding to a tradition most closely associated with the south of China, watch the spectacular dragon and lion dancing displays. She says that they may also visit grandparents and follow the tradition of receiving many red envelopes for pocket money.
If you are born in the Year of the Ox, you might consider wearing something red...
If you are born in the Year of the Ox, you might consider wearing something red, says Bowen, who clarifies that the Year of the Ox has the contradictory effect for those of the same animal symbol, and could actually bring bad luck. (Dr Jackson, meanwhile, takes solace in the fact that “her year”, the Year of the Rat in 2020, was in fact, a bad year for everybody!)
Moonyoung Hong is a PhD student in the School of English at Trinity, writing her thesis on Tom Murphy’s plays from the perspective of everyday space. From South Korea, she explains that the Korean New Year is known as 'Seollal’. “It is a family holiday, which involves visiting your family and paying respects to your ancestors. We would wear traditional dresses (Hanbok) and eat traditional food like Tteokguk (rice-cake soup), visit our ancestors' graves and/or go through the rites - we would set a table with lots of food as an offering to our ancestors - and give deep bows (Jeol). This traditional deep bow is also performed to the elders in the family (your grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles) as a way to wish them happy new year (it's called Sebae and the number of Jeol is different for the deceased)”.
Saehae bok mani badeuseyo! 새해 복 많이 받으세요! Happy New Year!
Moonyoung says that in return the children are given some pocket money, which however, must be returned to the elders when the children are old enough. She also highlighted fold games like the “Yutnori or flying kites (Yeon)” and for adults, “Go-stop or Hwatu, a popular card game.”
While Moonyoung is in Dublin, she notes that this year Koreans will not be celebrating as they are used to. “Korea is doing well in terms of containing the virus but restrictions on group gatherings are still in place, which means families will not be visiting each other. Here in Ireland, faraway, I will cook Tteokguk to mark the occasion, call my family and friends, and watch some Korean TV shows or films.”
In the spirit of the Korean Lunar New Year, Seollal, from all of us at the Trinity Long Room Hub:
Saehae bok mani badeuseyo! 새해 복 많이 받으세요! Happy New Year!
Find out about some upcoming online events at Trinity’s Centre for Asian Studies here.