New Year in Southeast Asia

New Year in Southeast Asia

In addition to the ‘Western’, (or Gregorian), New Year of January 1st, several other dates on the calendar are equally, if not more, important as far as New Year in Southeast Asia goes. And these days, regardless of traditions and predominant local religions, multiple new years are now celebrated in most of the region’s nations.

As with other, non-traditional Southeast Asian festivities, such as the increasingly popular Halloween or Valentine’s day, they obviously present commercial opportunities for shops and malls, as well as restaurants, bars and so-on, as well as providing fun-loving locals with another excuse for a party.

Best known is probably Chinese New Year which also corresponds to the Tet festival in Vietnam. More correctly termed the Lunar New Year, the date varies each year as it corresponds to that of the full moon between 20th January and 21st of February each year. All major Southeast Asian cities, plus many smaller towns, have significant ethnic Chinese populations – particularly Malaysian ones and Singapore, as well as Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phnom Penh etcetera – so celebrations are ubiquitous throughout the region.

Tet is the most important date on the Vietnamese calendar although celebrations generally take a slightly different form. In Western terms, consider it more like Christmas than New Year, so it’s more of a family affair, with many citizens going back to their homes rather than joining huge street parties. (We have to avoid Tet on our Vietnam tours as, frankly, it can be very hard to find guides, drivers and so-on willing to work during that period!)

Apart from the lunar, the next best-known new year in Southeast Asia is of course Songkran – the spectacular week long Thai event. More accurately this is the Theravada Buddhist New Year and so is equally celebrated in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and much of Sri Lanka. (See also China’s Yunnan Province with its large ethnic Tai minority.) The dates, with slight regional variations, are fixed – non-lunar – and fall every year on the 14th April, with the 13th therefore being New Year’s Eve. We probably have the Thais to thank for the massive street parties and water fights involving thousands of participants as with myriad clips flooding (no pun intended) the social media in recent years, celebrations in neighbouring Theravada countries now follow a similar pattern to Thailand. This goes on from the smallest village to the biggest cities and in Bangkok and Chiang Mai crowds regularly number in the tens of thousands.

There are, of course, significant pros and cons. If you’ve never been there at Songkran then the week of insanity is hard to imagine. (We’re not gong to link to any specific clips, but just search Songkran on YouTube for example.) There are also parades, live music, sound systems and plenty of dancing and it will guarantee a truly memorable experience but at risk of doing our ‘bah humbug’ routine, there are downsides.

Firstly, participation is not discretionary. From around midday onwards you will be drenched with water (sometimes iced) and covered in flour paste within 1 minute of leaving your hotel whether you like it or not. (Needless to say, phones, wallets etc should be sealed in plastic bags.) Ear shattering street parties and bar sound systems will continue until the early hours so, depending upon the location of your accommodation, earplugs can be essential. Schools and offices will close for several days at a stretch – which isn’t perhaps a big issue for visitors – but so will banks, immigration departments and certain tourist sites. Roads in some areas will be blocked and public transport – including taxi apps – will be hard to find and expensive.

Furthermore, as you can imagine, week long parties and motor vehicles don’t mix and unfortunately accident numbers skyrocket during this period. (If you have rented your own transport then leave it at home for the duration – it’s not easy to keep your eyes on the road when someone’s just thrown a bucket of iced water over your bike.)

In Thailand this goes on for 4, 5 or even 6 days depending upon the region, which in our opinion is 2 or 3 days too many. Similar festivities in Laos and Cambodia are generally on a slightly more restrained scale so could provide a ‘best of both Worlds’ option.

There are plenty of additional, principally minority, new year in Southeast Asia events such as Hmong New Year, (varies widely but usually sometime in November or December), Shan New Year, (full moon in November), and so-on but the 3rd main celebration is naturally the Western New Year – or Eve – on the 31st December. There aren’t any water fights in Thailand although lashings of Chang and Singha are guaranteed while any municipality across the region, worth its salt, will lay on a firework display. Festivities are limited to just the one evening though January 1st will be a designated public holiday pretty much anywhere.

So, for Southeast Asia’s citizens, and indeed the lucky visitors, why celebrate New Year when you can celebrate 2 or 3 new years instead?