When you’ve grown up in a Western culture, you probably think that New Year’s Day on January 1st is a festival celebrated everywhere. After all, January 1st is the same all over the world so the new year starts at the same time everywhere. This is half true as the Gregorian Calendar (the 12 month calendar we now use) is used all over the world for commercial, transport and communications purposes. But a lot of cultures still keep a place for their own calendar and most of us know that Chinese New Year, for example, does not fall on the same day as the Gregorian Calendar.
假如你是在西方文化下長大的人,應該會認為每年的1月1日不管在哪個地方都是個盛大慶祝的節日.終究1月1日在全世界任何地方都是一年的開始.不過這並不是完全正確的,雖然現在格里高里曆(我們現在所使用的新曆)被我們普遍所使用,不管是在商業,交通與通訊上都是,但是有許多其他地方的文化仍然保有他們故有的日曆,就像中國的舊曆上的日期就與格里高里曆上的不同.
Celebration of the new year is probably one of the oldest festivals around dating back to around 2000 BC when the Babylonians celebrated the new year at the start of Spring. Spring seems a good time to start a new year but the Romans clearly didn’t feel that this worked for them and Roman Senate set January 1st as the start of a New Year.
新年應該是全世界最老的節日之一,回朔到西元前2000年,巴比倫人在春天慶祝一年的開始.春天似乎是個邁向新的一年的好時機,但古羅馬人顯然並不這麼認為,所以古羅馬元老院(相當於上議院)
1月1日制定為一年的開始.
The Romans changed the time of year when the new year started but they kept some important traditions that we still continue with today. The New Year’s resolution - an undertaking to do something positive in the coming year - are still in use. We now make resolutions to do things like give up smoking, lose weight or become better people and typically these resolutions are pretty much forgotten about by the start of February when we fall back to or old habits.
當新的一年開始時,古羅馬人改變了時令,但他們仍保留了一些現今都還在的重要習俗.新年新希望-在即將到來的一年裡,決定要做的哪些正面的事情-到現在都還一直存在著.我們常會立訂計劃,比如戒煙,減肥或成為更完美的人等等諸如此類的新希望,不過通常都是在二月的一開始時就會逐漸忘記當初自己立下的新希望,而回到了不好的舊習慣.
Traditional New Year foods are also thought to bring luck. Many cultures believe that anything in the shape of a ring is good luck, because it symbolizes "coming full circle," completing a year's cycle.
傳統的新年食物也能帶來好運,許多文化都相信只要是任何與戒指一樣形狀的東西都能帶來好運,因為圓形代表”圓滿”,能讓一整年都很完整.
resolution : an undertaking or promise (usually to oneself) to do something positive in the coming year. 新希望:在新的一年開始前制定出要做哪些正面的事(通常都是指自己要做的事)
Gregorian Calendar : The modern calendar adapted from the Julian Calendar, conceived by the Roman’s, which fixes New Year’s day on the 1st January. 格里高里曆: 現今的日曆是從古羅馬人所編制的羅馬儒略曆改編而成的,它將1月1日這天改成新年的第一天.
