How the date is worked out
The Chinese calendar follows both the moon and the sun. Its months begin at each new moon, as seen in China’s time zone, and its year begins at the second new moon after the winter solstice, or the third in the rare years when a leap month comes between. The celebrations run for fifteen days, to the Lantern Festival at the first full moon. Vietnam’s Tết and Korea’s Seollal are worked out the same way for their own time zones, so they usually fall on the same day; when the new moon comes just before midnight in China, Seollal is a day later (February 7, 2027 and January 27, 2028), and just after it, Tết is a day earlier (February 2, 2030).
