Model and simulate how culture disseminates using Go and Jupyter Notebook
Nothing shouts culture more than visiting relatives during Chinese New Year. From celebrations and customs to decorations and food (it’s always about food), everything is red and loud in your face. When I was young, I thought this is what being Chinese is all about but as I grew older I realise there’s a lot more to it.
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I grew up in Malaysia and Singapore, in the Malay archipelago and growing up, I always thought Chinese New Year was a purely Chinese thing. Then I learnt that the Japanese, Koreans, Tibetans, Mongolians and Vietnamese also celebrate it. And the Chinese in China don’t even call it that, instead they call it the Spring Festival.
After a while I learnt that some of the customs which I always thought are totally Chinese, turned out to be not as straightforward as it seems. For example, lions aren’t native to China so why is lion dance a major part of Chinese New Year celebrations? What I always assumed to be staples of Chinese New Year – eating bak kwa and giving mandarin oranges are not practised in China in many places. And the perennial pineapple tart as a Chinese New Year snack is apparently purely a local practise, a crossover from the peranakans.