{"id":15561,"date":"2020-01-20T13:22:49","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T13:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.travelcenter.uk\/?p=15561"},"modified":"2020-01-20T14:04:10","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T14:04:10","slug":"the-2020-chinese-new-year-the-year-of-the-rat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/the-2020-chinese-new-year-the-year-of-the-rat\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2020 Chinese New Year: The Year of the Rat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Peering through the celestial wonders of China<\/span><\/strong><\/a> is a new year – a year of billowing celebrations and a year dedicated to the rat, one of the animals in the Chinese zodiac. Growing from the roots of long-held traditions and branches of culture, the Chinese New Year represents gratitude and devotion to the deities and ancestors above.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wreathed in shades of red, China<\/span><\/strong><\/a> reaches the peak of its splendour during the New Year. Sparks of fireworks make the sky it’s very own canvas while lanterns paint the local streets with an unforgivingly fervid glow, turning the festival into a portrait you’ll never quite forget.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese New Year of 2020 falls on January 25th (Saturday), and the festival will last to February 8th, about 15 days in total. As an official public holiday, Chinese people can get seven days’ absence from work, from January 24th to 30th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Suggested Read:<\/span><\/strong> Everything You Need to Know About the Expo 2020!<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s also quite notable to mention that the lantern festival also looms\ncloser with the succession of its predecessor. Equally engulfed in history, the\nlantern festival expresses freedom and a time of socialising. What’s more? The\nlantern festival is officially conjoined with the New Year, which lets the\nholiday stretch even more! Also, if you’re devastatingly single, you should\nknow that the lantern festival also birthed some of the wildest and most\nromantic stories for visitors (not exaggerating, it\u2019s an actual thing, there\nare even stories about it on Wattpad) So, get packing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What’s the great race?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to ancient folk stories, the Jade Emperor declared that the years on the calendar would be represented by 12 animals that reached his palace, in what is called The Great Race. In which the animals arrived in the order below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, let’s take more than a few steps back; you might have noticed a connotation citing that the year is \u201cdedicated to the rat”, and no, I’m afraid it isn’t referring to my middle school bully. While most of the world has never been too quiet to display their distaste for the animal, the Rat is the first proud animal to be represented in the Chinese Zodiac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Rat<\/span><\/li>
  2. Ox<\/span><\/li>
  3. Tiger<\/span><\/li>
  4. Rabbit<\/span><\/li>
  5. Dragon<\/span><\/li>
  6. Snake<\/span><\/li>
  7. Horse<\/span><\/li>
  8. Goat<\/span><\/li>
  9. Monkey<\/span><\/li>
  10. Rooster<\/span><\/li>
  11. Dog<\/span><\/li>
  12. Pig<\/span><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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    Suggested Read:<\/strong><\/span> Amsterdam Light Festival 2019\/2020<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Fact:<\/em><\/strong> There are quite a few titbits on how it shaped out to be this way. It wasn’t all fair competition. This might be sad for some of you kitty maniacs, such as myself, but a Cat was also involved in the race, that is until the art of deception took the reins of the race. The story starts out with both the cat and the Rat hatching a plan to go through the river on the Ox. Halfway through, however, the Rat pushed the Cat off (plot hole?). The Cat eventually drowned<\/em> \u2639<\/strong> and the Rat proceeded to run ahead of the Ox and become the first. Following this, the Chinese believe this is why Cats have an unmeasurable amount of hate for both Rats and water.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    If the Chinese New Year has been on your mind, then why not check out this deal making your flight experience easier<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \"If<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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    On that note, here’s an exclusive holiday\u00a0deal to China from us<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \"On<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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    Peering through the celestial wonders of China is a new year – a year of billowing celebrations and a year dedicated to the rat, one of the animals in the Chinese zodiac. Growing from the roots of long-held traditions and branches of culture, the Chinese New Year represents gratitude and devotion to the deities and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":347,"featured_media":15563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/347"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15561"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15573,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15561\/revisions\/15573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}