Let us celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Snake
This 1920s photo from the Passionist China Collection shows a snake charmer from Wusu 烏宿 in West Hunan 湘西. Let this photo inspire us to celebrate this Chinese New Year of the Snake on January 29, 2025. In the Chinese Zodiac the snake is the sign for individuals who were born in 1905, 1917, 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013, and 2025.
This short essay offers a 1920s viewpoint penned by Passionist missionary to China Father Raphael Vance and concludes with some qualities said to be associated with people born in these years.
Passionists and other missionaries were constantly trying to understand local Chinese culture and tradition. Writing from Yongshunfu, 永順府 West Hunan on November 18, 1926 to benefactors back home in the U.S., Philadelphia native Passionist Father Raphael Vance explained the meaning of Chinese New Year. His summary comes from the 1920s publication China Press:
“The Chinese have many superstitions regarding the observance of New Year’s. The New Year’s observance is a religious festival, the principal one observed during each year. On the eve of the day, slips of red paper are pasted slantwise on the door. Henceforth, nobody may open it before the New Year has dawned; to do so would entail the greatest misfortune for the family, and all happiness expected during the coming year would thereby escape, were the door even slightly opened.
On one of the slips is written the following motto: ‘May great happiness attend the closing of the door.’ And on the other: ‘May unbound prosperity accompany the opening of the door.’ Several attach to the slips some ingets [sic] of mock money, expecting thereby to be blessed with abundant riches during the coming year.
The idea of sending New Year’s to the imps [sic] of the nether world, hoping thus to ingratiate oneself with them and be unmolested during the coming, exhibits more foresight and wisdom than the average Chinese is generally credited with. On the last evening of the old year, shoes when taken off, are placed with the soles upward, so as to prevent the god of epidemic and plague from depositing therein germs of these fatal diseases.
On New Year’s morning ‘Heaven and Earth, the household gods, ancestors and the kitchen gods are duly worshipped, the God of Poverty is shown out and burnt beside the temple of the God of Soil, while the God of Wealth is ceremoniously introduced and this picture [is] set up in the family shrine hoping thereby to secure prosperity and an increase of fortune during the coming year. Strange to say some pagan families abstain from meat on New Year’s day. This is done in honor of Buddha, Maitreya [sic] or other dieties [sic] and is deemed to precipitate them and secure happiness for such pious devotion.”
Characteristics for people born with the Snake sign are said to be endowed with wisdom and with deep philosophical understanding. They are born thinkers who excel in finding solutions to complex problems. In matters of business they can be shrewd, biding their time in making a deal only to strike like lightning and make a killing when they judge the moment is right. Thus in life, the majority of Snakes are financially successful and generally lucky with money. These are clever, intelligent people who take time to formulate their ideas and opinions. Even when they are at their laziest, their minds are working overtime, laying their schemes and hatching their plots for the future. Snakes are wise, philosophical, calm, and understanding.