While the excitement of the Spring Festival holidays is finally fading, another wave of excitement is just starting to spread through the bustling streets of Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.
Stalls filled with butter sculptures as well as traditional Tibetan snacks and goods are now springing up in Lhasa's markets to welcome Losar, the Tibetan New Year.
Losar falls on February 27 this year. The most important festival for China's Tibetan ethnic minority, the holiday is celebrated for 15 days, during which time Tibetans pay tribute to Tibetan Buddhist gods and engage in many folk festivities.
Tibetan calendar
The Tibetan calendar was established more than 1,000 years ago. This calendar also includes what is known as a "Rab-byung," a 60-year cycle that is very similar to the sexagenary jiazi cycle used in the calendar that is most widely used in other parts of China.
Also divided into four seasons, a year in the Tibetan calendar consists of 354 days and 12 months, or 13 months when including a leap month. Months are either 29- or 30-days long.
Throughout its development, the Tibetan calendar has absorbed elements from other calendars. For example, during the Tibetan Empire (7th-9th century), the Tibetan calendar began making use of elements from the zodiac signs used in traditional Chinese culture. Each month in the Tibetan calendar is named after one of these 12 zodiac signs, so the first month is "rat," the second is "ox," the third is "tiger" and so on.
In its current state, the Tibetan calendar is a combined lunar-solar calendar that can help predict meteorological phenomenon during different times of the year and track solar and lunar eclipses.
Two-week celebration
Similar to the Han ethnic majority, Tibetans traditionally have a family reunion dinner on Tibetan New Year's Eve. However, at this gathering they traditionally eat "Guthuk," a porridge-like dish made from balls of dough containing different fillings.
This dish's name is related to Tibetan New Year's Eve, or the 29th of the 12th month. In Tibetan "gu" means "nine" and so represents the 29th, while "thuk" refers to the cooked wheat from which the balls of dough are made.
Fillings for these dough balls are made from nine different ingredients including dried cheese and various grains. Additionally, various items are also hidden inside some dough balls, such as chili peppers, salt, wool, rice and coal. Each of these items symbolizes a type of personality - stone stands for cruelty, wool for someone who is soft-hearted, chili for an unforgiving person, charcoal for an evil mind and a coin for someone who is good with money.
The following morning, housewives will fetch a bucket of water from a river or a well. The family that gets the first bucket of water is supposed to have good luck for the rest of the year.
