The intoxicating holidays of the Han Chinese Lunar Spring Festival are almost over.

To most Tibetans living in the country, however, this festival can only be considered a warm-up. As the Tibetan Lunar New Year falls on February 21 this year, the real week of merriment and revelry is just arriving.

Tibetans developed their own lunar calendar around 100 BC. After the region became a part of China in the mid-13th century, local Tibetans revised their own calendar using the Han lunar calendar as reference.

Like the lunar calendar popular among Han people, the Tibetan version also has 12 months and the New Year begins on the first day of the first month.

It runs in 60 year cycles, each year represented by one of the 12 animals (same as the Han calendar) and one of the five fundamental elements (water, fire, wood, metal, and earth) of the universe.

The start of the Tibetan Lunar New Year is usually close to, but not necessarily, the same day as the Han Lunar New Year.

Different from the Han people, however, Tibetans living in different areas celebrate their Lunar New Year in different ways and at different times.

Lhasa

In the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, the holiday begins on the 29th day of the 12th Tibetan month.

During the holiday which usually lasts one week in urban areas of Lhasa and two weeks in the countryside, new clothes are made, houses and monasteries alike are cleaned from top to bottom, various shapes of kase (fried wheat twists) are made, and walls are painted.

The family's best carpets and finest silver are brought out.

The Eight Auspicious Symbols, which appear as protective motifs throughout Tibetan-populated areas, are painted in strategic locations.

Butter lamps are lit. Flowers are placed on altars. Piles of juniper, cedar, rhododendron, and other fragrant branches are prepared for burning as incense.

On Tibetan New Year's Eve, the family gather around a steaming hot pot of dumpling soup called gortu.

Some of the dumplings have surprises wrapped in them. As the meal begins, each person opens one of these special dumplings. The object one finds will indicate, much like a fortune cookie, that person's personality.

If one finds salt, that is a good sign and means that one is all right; the one who finds wool is very lazy; coal indicates maliciousness; a white stone foretells a long life; pepper means that one has a glib tongue.

Everyone takes what is left in their bowl and dumps it back into the pot, as well as a piece of hair, a fingernail, and an old piece of clothing at the end of the meal.

A dough effigy representing collective evil and ill will of the past 12 months is made and put in on top of everything else.

A woman carries the pot out of the house. A man follows her with a burning torch made of wheat stalks shouting: "Get out! Get out!"

Then, the whole family moves to the middle of an intersection of roads or paths, where they throw away the remains of the gortu and the burning torch while the children set off firecrackers. So the city of Lhasa is illuminated by torches and resonant with the sound of firecrackers.

This ceremony is conducted to get rid of all the negative forces at the end of the year so that the New Year will begin unencumbered.

In the morning of New Year's Day, the family rise early, put on their new clothes and finest jewellery, make offerings of barley flour mixed with butter and sugar at the family shrine, and then go to monasteries after breakfast.

On that morning, tens of thousands of Tibetans swarm into the Jokhang, Zhaibung and Sera monasteries, and the Potala Palace, all in Lhasa, to worship Buddha.

People add roasted highland barley, wheat, and juniper and cedar branches into the burning incense burners on Barkhor Square. Smoke fills the area.

On the second day of the Tibetan New Year, people begin visiting their relatives and friends. They feast on rich holiday foods, drink highland barley liquor, play mahjong, dice and card games, and sing and dance around huge bonfires at night. The revelry continues from three to five days.

Xigaze Prefecture

Like their peers in Lhasa, Tibetans in Xigaze Prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region launch their Tibet Lunar New Year holiday on December 29th of the Tibet lunar calendar.

On that afternoon, local Tibetan men wash their hair after cleaning their houses and painting the Eight Auspicious Symbols on the walls. It is said that this will help the men have black and shiny hair and bring good luck to the family. Women cannot wash their hair that afternoon because it would have the opposite effect.

On New Year's Eve, the same ceremony to drive out evil spirits is carried out in every family. Instead of throwing away the remains of the gortu and the burning torch, the men of the family climb onto a hill far from the house and burn a boiled sheep head until black, which will be offered at the family shrine as a sacrifice. As a result, the day has become known as "the smelly last day."

The young men and women get up around dawn on New Year's Day. Dressed in their festive best, some of them climb onto hills to erect new prayer flags for the village.

Prayer flags are square pieces of fabric with prayers printed on them, strung together and hung from a large timber flagpole. Each flutter of a flag in the wind is another recitation of the prayer printed on it, for the benefit of the community.

The others go to streams or wells for "new water."

Then the family will have a lunch at which they share a sheep's head, sausages and wheat porridge, and drink highland barley liquor on the first day of the first Tibetan month.

In the second day of the New Year, all families gather in their neighborhood squares to burn juniper branches and offer highly alcoholic barley liquor and snacks as sacrifice to the area's deity of the land and protector deities.

Starting on the third day of the New Year, banquets for friends and relatives are held one after another.

Amdo region

The Amdo region refers to Tibetan areas in Qinghai Province, southwestern Gansu Province and northwestern Sichuan Province.

Most of the region is covered with vast grasslands. Tibetans living there are mainly nomads.

For the Amdo Tibetan nomads, the first thing to be done on the morning of the Tibetan Lunar New Year is always to climb to the top of a hill near their settlement and try to be the first person to burn juniper branches to worship the local protector deities.

It is a great honor to be the first to burn juniper branches, for he or she has the right to sound the white conch to inform the others living around the hill and the first smoke can be seen for a great distance.

Other people at the top of the hill will then add more juniper and cedar branches to the fire and offer liquor and highland barley flour to the local protector deities.

Different from Lhasa and Xigaze, house cleaning and water drawing are prohibited on New Year's Day in many areas of the Amdo region.

In some Amdo areas, men get up early in the morning of New Year's Day and run toward the cow or sheep sheds to see in which direction the animals are pointing while they sleep.

Wherever their heads point, whether east, south, west or north, that direction will have auspicious conditions for the New Year. Cows and sheep will be painted three colors or tied with five-color cloth stripes, and made to move in that direction for some distance to ensure good luck.

Nyingchi Prefecture

In this Eastern Tibet prefecture, the holidays for the 2004 Tibetan Lunar New Year will at this time actually be over, because the residents of the prefecture in Eastern Tibet celebrate the Tibetan Lunar New Year on the first day of the 10th Tibetan lunar month.

The special local custom began in 1904. That year, news came to Nyingchi that invading British troops were arriving. Local Tibetan men in Nyingchi Prefecture began preparing to join the fight against invasion to defend their home villages.

In order not to miss the New Year celebrations, the local people decided to hold the festival events before the men left for the battle field.

This happened on the first day of the 10th Tibetan lunar month, and the tradition has stuck until today.

The locals are fond of dogs, as the region boasts dense forests and dogs that not only guard houses, but also men's hunting helpers.

During New Year's Eve, dogs are invited to share food with their masters. Traditionally, the food the dogs choose to eat will be abundant in the coming year.

So, if people miss the chance of enjoying the Tibetan Lunar New Year in Nyingchi in the 10th Lunar Month, they still have another chance to enjoy it in other parts of Tibet.

(China Daily January 30, 2004)