SBS Mandarin spoke with members of the Chinese community during its morning talkback segment following the City of Sydney council's decision to rename the Chinese New Year festival to the Lunar Festival.
More than half of the nearly two dozen talkback callers supported the change, while a majority of the rest said they were impartial to it.
“Our culture should be inclusive. Lunar New Year originated in China. When Australians are celebrating this festival, we should be inclusive. As long as our culture has been recognised, the name doesn’t matter,” caller Mr Deng said.
Caller Ms Guo said the name issue was “not a black-and-white” one.
File: Performers in the Chinese New Year Twilight Parade in Sydney Source: AAP
“It is just a festival on the Lunar calendar. It doesn’t belong to anybody,” she said.
Meanwhile, caller Ms Li urged the council to ensure the future acknowledgement of the Chinese community’s contribution to the event, “just like all formal events need to acknowledge indigenous people".
Mr Zhang said changing the Chinese New Year to Lunar New Year was an example of "excessive political correctness".
"It is not necessary. Chinese New Year doesn’t mean the New Year of China. It is like [how] Americans are always speaking English, the language is used by Canadians and Australians as well. But we are not English people. Shall we change the name of the language and do not call it English?"
Celebrations of Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year have a long history in Australian cities and local government areas.
FIle: Performers during the Chinese New Year Twilight Parade in Sydney Source: AAP
The City of Melbourne still uses the words Chinese New Year for its festival, while the event is called Lunar New Year by Georges River Council, the Sydney LGA which has the highest Chinese population density in Australia.
The change was good news for Paul Nguyen, President of the NSW chapter of the Vietnamese Community in Australia.
"From the point of view of Chinese New Year, I understand that it originated in China a long time ago, but there are countries in South-East Asia who celebrate the same new year, which happens to be the Lunar calendar, which we call Lunar New Year.”
Each year, the Sydney festival contributes significantly to the city's economy.
The City of Sydney council has long claimed that the staging of the festival was “the biggest Chinese New Year celebration outside of mainland China”.
The festival has been extensively reported by Chinese language media.
In 2016, the Festival attracted more than 600,000 visitors to Sydney from across Australia and around the world.
