Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, marks the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. The first day falls on the new moon between January 21 and February 20, so the date changes every year. In 2026 it was on February 17 (the year of the Horse), and in 2027 it will be on February 6 (the year of the Goat). The festival runs from New Year’s Eve to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day.

According to legend, the holiday began with a mythical beast called the Nian, which attacked villagers until they learned that it was afraid of the color red and loud noises. That is why red and firecrackers are still so closely tied to the festival. Families gather for a reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve and clean their houses to sweep away the bad luck of the old year. Red paper couplets are hung on doors, and married adults give red envelopes of money to children. The amounts usually end in 8, a lucky number, and never in 4.

Chinese New Year is celebrated far beyond China, e.g., in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, and in Chinatowns around the world. Every year before the holiday, millions of people travel home in a 40-day period called chunyun, known as the world’s largest annual migration. The celebrations were banned in China in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution, and the Spring Festival was restored as a public holiday by 1980. In 2024 it was added to the UNESCO list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Note

The designs for the pair of endangered bird species is very nice, the designs for the Whooping Crane and the Black-Necked Crane. I’m a bird fan, so I’m partial to bird stamps. I have a topical stamp collection of birds. I may post those pages on this web site one day.

Contains 12 spots: own 12 – 12 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Mar 7, 2025

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot	own	catalog	subject	description
1.1	✓	2817	Year of the Dog	29c (feb 1994) comm., multicolor
1.2	✓	2818	Buffalo Soldiers	29c (apr 1994) comm., multicolor
1.3	✓	2876	Year of the Boar	29c (dec 1994) comm., multicolor

Trains & Locomotives

2.1	✓	2843	William Hudson - General	29c (jul 1994) comm., multicolor
2.2	✓	2844	Walter McQueen - Jupiter	29c (jul 1994) comm., multicolor
3.1	✓	2845	Wilson Eddy - Nbr 242	29c (jul 1994) comm., multicolor
3.2	✓	2846	Theodore Ely - Nbr 10	29c (jul 1994) comm., multicolor
3.3	✓	2847	William Buchanan Nbr. 999	29c (jul 1994) comm., multicolor

Birds of North America

4.1	✓	2868	Whooping Crane Grus americana	29c (oct 1994) comm., multicolor
4.2	✓	2867	Black-Necked Crane Grus nigricollis	29c (oct 1994) comm., multicolor

Space Exploration

5.1	✓	2842	Apollo Astronauts on Moon	$9.95 (jul 1994) comm., multicolor
5.2	✓	2841a	Apollo Astronaut Saluting	29c (jul 1994) comm., multicolor

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.