In 2025, Lunar New Year begins January 29 and marks the start of the Year of the Snake. Across the country, many Asian American communities will celebrate its arrival by visiting family and friends, eating traditional cuisine, and participating in public festivities.

“Lunar New Year is arguably one of the most important holidays in Asian culture, as seen in national celebrations worldwide such as in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, to name only a few,” says Joanne Lee, executive director of Edge on the Square, a cultural arts hub in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

To honor the importance of the holiday and recognize the cultural practices associated with it in China, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added the country’s Spring Festival to its Intangible Heritage List in 2024. China’s Spring Festival is one of the world’s grandest Lunar New Year celebrations.

In the United States, Lunar New Year celebrations, many of which are anchored in Chinatowns, offer opportunities to participate in cultural practices carried to this country by immigrant communities and adapted in unique ways by the diaspora.

Each of these traditions exemplifies the rich heritage rooted in America’s Chinatowns, which goes well beyond the neighborhoods’ uniquely recognizable gates, temples, and other structures. As program director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's America’s Chinatowns initiative, Di Gao, said, “If we preserve the buildings but lose the intangible heritage, the businesses, people, traditions, and big and small ways of life that form the lifeblood of Chinatowns, then we will have failed to preserve these communities.”

Here are four examples of this heritage that you’ll find at Lunar New Year celebrations in America’s Chinatowns and Asian American communities this year.

The Lion Dance

The Lion Dance has its roots in a mythic story of sacred lions being invited down from their mountain home to bless a community, explained Mai Du, owner of Wah Lum Kung Fu and Tai Chi Academy in the Greater Boston area, on GBH News last year. “When [the lion] comes down to dance, it has this magic from the third eye, which is the sixth chakra, and it’s going to drive away all evil energy, bad toxic buildup, and stagnation and just clear out everything, bring in good energy, auspicious [energy], good health, successes, prosperity, and longevity,” she said.

The Lion Dance is an important tradition at the annual Lunar New Year parade in Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood. This event has been hosted and organized by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) of Washington, D.C., for over 65 years. Penny Lee, who handles public relations at CCBA, said that D.C.’s first Lion Dance in the New Year parade was performed by the Chinese Youth Club in the 1940s. “In those days, we didn’t have lion heads, so one of the founding members of the Chinese Youth Club traveled to New York to borrow the heads so we could include them in the D.C. Chinatown parades.”

The lion head is constructed with paper mache, supported by a bamboo or wicker frame with a colorful tail made of cloth and sequins. Lee from CCBA said, “Each lion head consists of two people: one operates the head and its functions of the eyes, ears and mouth, while the other person mimics the lion tail movements. The Lion Dance is derived from the martial arts techniques of Kung Fu, including knee bends, horse stances, and traditional martial arts movements.” Musicians play drums, gongs, and cymbals while the larger-than-life lions stomp and weave to drive out the old year and welcome the new one.

Red Envelopes

The red envelopes are part of a cultural practice passed down from generations building a relationship between children and their cultural heritage, “It’s part of our culture and it happens in our community, and that’s why it keeps going year, after year, after year,” said Lee from CCBA in Washington, D.C. “Then we teach the young kids, and we give them red envelopes ... so that when they grow up, they do the same thing. It’s a repeated ritual and tradition.”

Auspicious Dishes

Celebrations of the Lunar New Year would not be complete without a feast or several feasts, as celebrations last up to sixteen days, beginning with the new moon and ending with the following full moon.

At Chinatown-International District (C-ID) in Seattle, which includes Japantown and Little Saigon, Lunar New Year festivities include a food walk. At the food walk, visitors enjoy a curated menu of small plates already available at featured restaurants and special Lunar New Year dishes. The event supports over fifty of the small businesses and restaurants in the C-ID. “This is a chance for attendees to explore the neighborhood, get to know the restaurants and businesses and [make plans to] come back at a later time," said Gina Chaleunphonh, communications and marketing coordinator for the C-ID Business Improvement Area. "Holding this during the Lunar New Year celebration lets us spread the love to all of these businesses that are also celebrating the new year.”

Arts, Crafts, and Games

In many Chinatowns, Lunar New Year includes the teaching of traditional crafts. Shang, in Philadelphia, described how during this period of celebrations many families put strips of red paper on either side of their doorways which are adorned with couplets. The couplets are written in a specific form with rules—for instance they are concise and must be the same length with a specific rhyme scheme—and drawn in beautiful calligraphy.

PCDC hosts a workshop for those who want to make their own decorations. “During Chinese New Year, people put [couplets] up right outside their front door to celebrate Chinese New Year. Nowadays, lots of people just print it out, but traditionally we will go to the calligraphy master to do it for us, and so we wanted to do the [workshop to] highlight the [couplet] part of the tradition.”

Shang also loves how PCDC’s Mahjong workshop brings people to Philadelphia’s Chinatown, “I’m from Chengdu, but [many in Philadelphia] are from Guangdong,” she explained. Both are Mahjong-loving regions of China, making PCDC’s Mahjong event the most popular of PCDC’s annual festivities. “People want to play and have fun with their family and friends,” said Shang.

In New York City, Lunar New Year celebrations hosted by Think!Chinatown (T!C) include similar gatherings centered around food and games, but also lantern making and traditional crafts. A workshop to create papercut decorations with T!C's Artist-in-Residence Ling Tang is among the most popular. Here attendees, “explore the cultural history of Lunar New Year decorations, and learn folding techniques to create continuous circular chuanghua patterns.” As their workshop description states, these household decorations are used on walls, windows, and doors and invite good luck into the home along with happiness for the season.

Additional reporting done by Priya Chhaya, associate director of content at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.