VANK distributes digital posters that request the United Nations to correct the marking problem of “Chinese New Year”.
In January, 2020, VANK started a petition on the world’s largest petition site (change.org) to correct “Chinese New Year” to “Lunar New Year” on the official United Nations site and stamps issued by the United Nations, and for this, VANK has created and is distributing digital posters relevant to the topic.
In the description of the stamps issued by the United Nations in 2020, it marked ‘Chines Lunar Calendar’ as if it was only Chinese to commemorate the Lunar New Year.
The problem is that a year after that, in 2021, a new stamp issued by the United Nations was issued by marking only ‘Chinese Lunar Calendar’ again.
Despite the fact that Lunar New Year is celebrated by Asian people together, even though we have raised issued to the United Nations last year, VANK believes that it is a serious problem that the United Nations once again limited the festivals(holidays) of Asian countries and peoples only as Chinese holidays.
Above all, the UN, which should control conflicts and disputes around the world and understand and respect other culture among the UN member states, might seem like it is bluntly supporting China’s cultural hegemony.
This action by the UN is obviously disregarding Asian people such as Koreans, Vietnamese, and Filipinos, whom celebrate the Lunar New Years culture different from China.
It also violates the UN spirit of understanding and respecting the cultures and histories around the world.
Because of the information provided by the United Nations, the ‘Lunar New Year’ holidays is imprinted as ‘Chinese New Year.’ This is fostering conflict by spreading incorrect awareness across the world by conspicuously disregarding Asians countries such as Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines, which are member states of the United Nations with different cultures from China.
Even though each country has different cultures and traditions in their respective countries, international organization such as the United Nations defying different cultures and traditions only as Chinese culture is against the trend of respecting the unique culture and identity of countries in the globalization era of the 21st century. It is also an obstacle to world peace, where we respect each other.
For your reference, foreign media has recognized this error in countries where mislabeled the ‘Lunar New Year’ as ‘Chinese New Year’, and has rectified it.
One of them is the Australian press ‘The Australian’, according to the press, on 30th of January 2019, Sydney’s festival name has been changed from ‘Chinese New Year’ to ‘Lunar New Year’.
Sydney has officially rebranded its annual celebration of ‘Chinese New Year’ to the ‘Lunar New Year’ Festival, ending years of controversy surrounding the name of the most significant cultural event celebrated by Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and other Asian communities in Australia.
Also, after two years of complaint by VANK, just before the Lunar New Year Holidays of 2021, the error regarding ‘Lunar New Year’ on the worldwide well-known portal site Google has been corrected.
In the past, if you were to search ‘Lunar New Year’ on Google search bar, the result that comes on the top and on Google Knowledge Graph on the right side defined ‘Lunar New Year’ as ‘Chinese New Year’. However, after VANK members’ steady efforts, if you search ‘Lunar New Year’ now, the top result and the Google Knowledge Graph shows ‘Lunar New Year’ on top.
The UN should also recognize the seriousness of the ‘Lunar New Years’ marking problem and correct it as well.
Following last year’s campaign, through the Global Petition campaign (http://maywespeak.com/lunar), we now proceed with the campaign that ask for the UN to correct its error on marking ‘Lunar New Years’.
In accordance with the spirit of the United Nations, which respects the cultures of each country, the ‘Chinese Lunar Calendar’ mark on the stamp also needs to be quickly rectified.
Please actively persuade the United Nations through VANK’s digital posters.