Celebrating Chinese New Year in Groningen

New Year’s Eve dinner © Nanyun ‘Oliver’ Zhang

Chinese residents in Groningen gathered last night to celebrate the Chinese New Year’s Eve. The Netherlands counts more than 54.2 thousand Chinese residents originally born in China, forming one of the largest overseas Chinese populations in Europe. 

The Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year – also referred to as Spring Festival – is a major celebration in most Asian countries and marks the first day of the Chinese lunisolar calendar.  As China follows both the Solar (Gregorian) and the lunar calendars, the date of the Chinese New Year varies every year. This year it falls on Wednesday, January 29.

In Chinese tradition, each Lunar New Year revolves around a 12-year cycle and corresponds to a specific zodiac animal. Chinese New Year 2025 marks the year of the snake.

How is the Chinese New Year celebrated?

This 15-day long celebration traditionally starts with a family dinner on New Year’s Eve. However, for most of the Chinese diaspora in Groningen, and in particular Chinese students, going home to celebrate is infeasible.

“This is the second year that I’m having a party without my friends and my family members,” Nanyun ‘Oliver’ Zhang, a student from the Yunnan province, tells The Glass Room. While last year Oliver enjoyed celebrating New Years abroad, this year he struggles with loneliness and homesickness, adding that next year he will celebrate with his parents in China.

For his 2025 New Year’s Eve dinner, Oliver joined other Chinese students in Groningen to celebrate together. Talking about the most important customs of this celebration, he explains the importance of eating fish, which symbolizes abundance and prosperity, and of exchanging ‘red pockets’ – namely cash gifts that represent a good wish for wealth in the coming year – among friends and family. 

“Sometimes we may be far away from different countries, and may not have the opportunity to get together,” says Oliver. “For example, my brother is in Germany and I'm in the Netherlands. So we send electronic red pockets as good wishes for all the family members.”

New Year’s Eve dinner © Nanyun ‘Oliver’ Zhang

While the most famous tradition is the Han Chinese, other ethnic minorities in China, such as the Mongolian, celebrate the Lunar New Year differently. 

Muqier Buka, a Mongolian student from the Xinjiang region, explains to The Glass Room some differences between her community's New Year celebration – referred to as 'Tsagaan Sar' (White/Pure Month) – and the Chinese Han tradition. While Han Chinese decorate their homes in red, Mongolians wear traditional clothes and play traditional Mongolian dances and songs.

Muqier also mentions that on New Year’s Eve, her community traditionally cooks meat-based dishes, and does not use fireworks. “We believe nature is everything,” she says. “We are nomadic people, basically our life depends on nature. So we don't let something destroy our nature.”

Different traditions, but same wishes

Despite some customary differences, the meaning and wishes for the new year are the same in all traditions.

“New Year means new hope, new wishes, new resolutions,” says Muqier. “But my family members and I mostly appreciate it as an opportunity to get together and talk to each other.”  Similarly, for Oliver “The meaning of New Year is that you say goodbye to the past year and you say hello to the new one.”

In the end, no matter the tradition, the new year is a time for hope, renewal, and togetherness.