Tibetan New Year (Losar)
The most popular Tibetan festival in the Tibetan regions dates back centuries. This Losar literally means “new year”, this unfolds not as a mere festival, but contains huge decorations, including Kapsey-crisp, yak butter pastries shaped like flowers, and yaks-symbols of abundance. The core preparation is the Chema box, an ornate vessel holding dyed barley flowers, roasted grains, and Tsampa, honoring the land’s generosity and praying for the bountiful year.
Right before two days before Tibetan Losar, it starts from Guthuk (a family gathering day for Tibetan style dough drops noodle hiding secret fillings) on the 29th day of the old Tibetan Lunar month, the secret fillings include chilies for short temper, wool for pure mind, coal for dirty mind, glass for transparency, wheat for illness, paper for easy going, etc. After dinner, the whole society will start with firecrackers crackling to ward off evil, and incense curls upward, a humble prayer to welcome the light into the new year.
Then comes the Eve Day, which is known as Nanga in Tibetan. Usually, Tibetans don’t clean their homes on this day; family members come in traditional dress, talk sweetly, spread laughter within the house, and stay the whole day in their home to start a smooth and calm new year.
Finally, the new year starts with the 1st day of the Tibetan Lunar calendar. From early morning, all neighbors will come up with a Chema box in their hands and pay a visit to every neighbor in their colorful-looking Tibetan dress (Chupa). Everyone throws the Droso (barley) and Chema (Tsampa) in the air three times with prayers and pays warm Tashi Delek to each other for the new year.
In the end, Losar is a great hope—the harshest winter yields to spring, darkness to light, and every heart can start anew. Losar Tashi Delek: may its magic touch every soul, as it has for millennia.
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