Vancouver mum Kim Phan Nguyễn-Stone says she’s excited to mark the Lunar New Year with her family starting this Sunday, but was appalled by the red and gold decorations on the streets ushering in the Year rabbit.
“[This] is a Chinese expression for Lunar New Year,” she said. “Bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, but no cats – it kind of feels like we’ve been forgotten.”
Nguyễn-Stone is one of many Vietnamese Canadians who will celebrate the arrival of Tết Quý Mão (Year of the Cat), but believe that the Lunar New Year diversity celebration does not extend to the Vietnamese calendar.
Like the Chinese, the Vietnamese lunar calendar operates on a 12-year cycle, with each year corresponding to a zodiac animal.
But the two cultures developed slightly different ranges of star signs. While the Chinese have the ox as the second sign and the rabbit as the fourth, the Vietnamese have the buffalo and the cat instead.
There are many folk theories as to why the Vietnamese calendar has a cat instead of a rabbit. According to the professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee Megan Brisonone explanation is the Chinese astrological term for rabbit, mǎo (卯), has been misinterpreted as mao (“cat” in Vietnamese) when ancient Vietnam adapted the Chinese zodiac.
The latest census data shows that the number of people of Vietnamese ancestry has increased by 14.5% in Canada from 2016 to 2021, a higher rate than those who identify their ethnicity as Chinese (–3%) or Korean (9.8%), another Asian community that commemorates the Year of the Rabbit.
But Vietnam’s growing population has not translated into greater recognition. Over the past few weeks, hundreds of Vietnamese in Canada, the United States and elsewhere have taken to social media, such as Subtle Vietnamese traitsa Facebook group subscribed to by more than 110,000 members, expressing frustration that the wider community seems unwilling to recognize the Year of the Cat.
Band member and Victoria resident James Le (Lê Đức), who was born in the Year of the Cat, just like his parents, says the zodiac animal is an important part of their identity and he expects that others respect him.
“[If other people] see the usual western zodiac signs, you can imagine if you think of yourself as, say, a Capricorn, but then you see another name for it, it kind of baffles you,” he said.
Le said he hopes public organizations and private companies can honor Vietnamese culture in the future.
WATCH︱James Le marks the Year of the Cat with his mom’s gift, a cat figurine:
The Vietnamese community in British Columbia is sharing the animal they celebrate this Lunar New Year: the cat.
But business professor Wootae Chun of the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, who specializes in cross-cultural marketing, argues that to get there, Vietnamese community associations across Canada should actively promote their culture to decision-makers in the private and public sectors. sectors through better social media strategies.
“Once you have made them feel the importance of cultural differences [between] During the Lunar New Year of the Cat and the Rabbit, they will try to apply these cultural meanings to their decision-making process,” Chun said.
Nguyễn-Stone says that as a second-generation Canadian with limited proficiency in Vietnamese, she is doing her part to pass on her Vietnamese heritage, teaching all she knows about the culture to her three children.
“If I don’t, they won’t really learn as much as they could.”
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