It is called Losar. It starts in February, the 9th, and it lasts fifteen days. According to the Tibetan tradition, we are in 2143 and this year is dedicated to the fire monkey. From 9th February and for 15 days the Tibetan people celebrate Losar, the Tibetan New Year. This is the most important festival in the Tibetan tradition and, as on Christmas, families gather for Losar, passing along the days that are dedicated to food and company.
It is a religious holiday so during these days people go to visit monasteries and pray; it is marked with ancient ceremonies that represent the struggle between good and evil. The day before Tibetan New Year’s Eve monasteries hold a special kind of ritual in preparation for the Losar celebrations; in addition a kind of special noodle called guthuk, which is made of nine different ingredients including dried cheese and various grains, is prepared. Losar Festival is characterized especially by dancing, music, and a general spirit of merrymaking; the tradition says that what you do during Losar it will be done during the rest of the year, so these days are traditionally filled with pleasant events. In the days before the beginning of the new year, houses are cleaned from top to bottom and new clothes are packed for all family members.
Tibet, like most of Asian countries, follows a lunar calendar and the new year deadline changes every year. According to the tradition, if within the household it has been a mourning over the previous year, Losar is not celebrated. This is why recently many Tibetan families, both in exile and in Tibet, have stopped celebrating their most important holiday.
For some years usual celebrations have been cancelled and replaced by prayer festivals to remember all those Tibetans who have self immolated to protest against the lack of freedom and human rights abuses perpetrated by the Chinese regime.
This is also one of the reasons why the beautiful aspects of the rich Tibetan heritage need to be emphasized to the general public, so that they can better understand Tibet’s culture, political and religious reality.