I had a conversation about the difference of "Chinese New Year" and "Lunar New Year" with a friend. After reading some articles it seemed to me that always calling it Lunar New Year was more inclusive. However, my friend said calling it Lunar New Year to someone who celebrates Chinese New Year would be offensive. I didnt think it would be offensive since the new year that is being celebrated is still that of the lunar calander. My question is, would it be offensive to someone who celebrates Chinese New Year to tell them "Happy Lunar New Year"?

Question

Aethelweard · Answer

It all depends. Your best bet is to tell Chinese "Happy Chinese New Year", and tell others "Happy Lunar/their country's New Year".

FantaSea · Answer

It depends. Some care, some don't regard this important.

Mok1 · Answer

Now Chinese young people attach great importance to protecting our traditional culture. I don't know if you will believe that the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) and the (Chinese) Lunar New Year have always been considered the same thing, but in recent years they have been called the "Korean New Year" or the "Vietnamese New Year", or Lunar New Year. The purpose of the "Lunar New Year " is to obscure the origin of Chinese cultura. Ancient China was equivalent to Rome in ancient Europe. South Korea and Vietnam were affiliated to China in ancient times. A large part of the culture of Korea, Japan and Vietnam was affected by Chinese culture. Even the composition of today's South Korea flag was provided by the Qing Dynasty of China中国清朝, and the prototype was 太极 Tai Chi and Eight Diagrams 八卦. Recently, because of the wide influence of the Kpop Kdrama, and the fact that Chinese people can't access Twitter or Youtube, Korean people have begun to distort history, start to misappropriate culture and falsely claim to be their culture. You won't find it hard to find that Korean people always steal the culture of other countries and think it is theirs, and some foreigners also call them cultural thieves. Chinese young people will be offended because they take our things and claim them theirs, such as the 24 solar terms 24节气 and the Chinese zodiac中国生肖.

Mok1 · Answer

A celebrity called Danielle Marsh said "Chinese New Year" then she was bullied by Korean netizens. She finally apologized on Instagram, here is the comment picture.

Mok1 · Answer

I don't think we should tolerance such culture appropriation.

Mok1 · Answer

........

a3m84j7 · Answer

Hi！There hasn’t any foreigners gave me New Year's greetings.😭But I think “Happy Chinese New Year ”is people usually says and "Happy Lunar New Year"wouldn’t be offensive to Chinese.

a3m84j7 · Answer

I just went to search and I found an article. It might can give you the answer\(≧▽≦)/ It is written in Chinese,and might be a little hard😝 If U get any problem,U can ask me!٩(˃̶͈̀௰˂̶͈́)و （I'm not very good at English so some questions I may can’t answer😭, Kindly give me your advice！）

a3m84j7 · Answer

https://export.shobserver.com/baijiahao/html/344534.html

GOCAC · Answer

@DanganDespair 
The New Year origining from ancient China is based on the LUNISOLAR CALENDAR invented by ancient Chinese people,not the lunar calendar invented by European scholars.So it's inappropriate to call it "lunar new year".
Sadly almost no westerners seem to know(or to care).
If there's a must,I would say "Lunisolar New Year".
In my whole life I call it "Chinese New Year" because it ORIGINs from China,although now celebrated worldwide.I clearly know some Asian countries had developed their own ways to observe this festival.Plus,I really appreciate it and respect people from those countries,and NOT A SINGLE Chinese are opposing them!They have their rights to do it!
The problem is,some scxms want  a culture appropriation.Out of hatred of China(Historical or political),they advertise those Chinese New Year variations to blur its origin,or simply claim it belongs to some other countries.IThese degenerates are the minority,but they shout the loudest,and that do mislead some people who don't know much about East Asia and its rich cultures.
Chinese had never done such thing,so when they heard this ugly thing ever happened,they are triggered.
e.g.For a while,Chinese also celebrate Christmas,and developed a native ritual:Eat apples for goodwill.But NO ONE would call it "Happy Chinese Christmas" just because it had a native variation.NO.
e.g.The jasmine was introduced into ancient China through the silk road,so long ago(thousands of years) that there had developed countless folk songs to appreciate its beauty.But no Chinese would say they "own" it because they sing their songs about it.
So I guess you can see why so many Chinese are pissed off by such behavior.
And the offence,it depends.Some senior Chinese citizen might get confused and...not OK.But to younger generations,many did put their fingers on the situation and won't be easily offended if you are a foreigner.But still try to avoid it if you can.🙏🌹

Alicesea · Answer

你不觉得是冒犯，因为你不是中国人，你不在乎中国传统文化是不是被受其影响的国家进行窃取。几年之前在国际上庆祝新年甚至没有“农历新年快乐”这样一种说法，因为中国以及中国周围受中华文化影响庆祝农历新年的文化中所使用的农历，就是来自于中国，你明白吗？他们庆祝的是原原本本从中国拿走的属于中国的历法中的节日。你可能没有注意到，或者说你注意到了但是不在乎，中国人之前并没有对“农历新年”或者“中国新年”有什么大的反应。而之所以会“冒犯”，这一切都源于这几年间韩国及其他泛中华文化圈对中国传统文化的剥离、窃取以及肉眼可见的即将进行下一步的试图进行替代。 当一个小偷试图偷走你的东西并且联合周围的人告诉你这个东西属于小偷的时候，你也会觉得冒犯的。或许你也可以告诉我，当在你的文化中，那些信仰上帝的人看到这种图会不会觉得冒犯。
You don't feel offended, because you are not Chinese, and you don't care whether Chinese traditional culture is stolen by the countries affected by it. A few years ago, there was even no "Happy Lunar New Year" in the international celebration of the New Year, because the lunar calendar used in the culture of celebrating the Lunar New Year in and around China under the influence of Chinese culture is from China, do you understand? What they celebrate is a festival in the Chinese calendar that was taken from China in its original form. You may not have noticed, or you may have noticed, but you don't care. The Chinese people haven't responded much to the "Chinese New Year" or "Chinese New Year" before. The reason for "offending" is that Korea and other pan-Chinese cultural circles have stripped and stolen Chinese traditional culture in recent years, as well as the next attempt to replace it. You will also feel offended when a thief tries to steal your things and tells you that it belongs to a thief in combination with people around you. Perhaps you can also tell me whether those who believe in God will feel offended when they see this picture in your culture.（From translation software）

LunarWhite · Answer

First of all,  the situation Chinese people celebrate their new year
 indicates they are utilizing lunisolar calendar.

So，calling the Chinese new year as lunar new year manifests the failure of common scene. 
And that is the reason why people in  China call it agricultural calendar new year but not lunar new year.

But there is something weird that some people in other regions celebrate their “LUNAR NEW YEAR” in the new year‘s days of lunisolar calendar.

Betterbe · Answer

@Mok1  OMG! I'm shocked that there are really that kind of Chinese people who believe those rumors online are true. 🤣🤣🤣 No Koreans think that the root of English is Korean. And we do not have spring festival and we don't call it Korean new year. It's just called 설 in Korea. Stop spreading bs about Koreans!

You seem to know Korean. Have you ever tried talking about all these with Koreans to check out what you strongly believe is true?

I want you to post about what you strongly believe in the Korean section so that you can directly hear how Koreans view your thoughts.

I know China is very different from many free democratic countries which have freedom of the speech. But you can still google to check out the truth using VPN.
I think you're smart enough to not believe everything said on Chinese websites and media is true.