Goodbye Rooster, Hello Dog

新年好! Xīnnián hǎo! Happy New Year!

While Taiwan officially follows the Minguo calendar (which is basically the Gregorian calendar but with a different numbering of years to reflect the year ROC/Taiwan was founded), the Chinese lunisolar calendar plays an important role in the determination of holidays in Taiwan.

The first day of the lunar year is based around the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox – in other words, the new moon that falls between, like, January 20th and February 20th is when the new lunar year begins. In 2018, that date is February 16.

tl;dr: Chinese New Year is coming. Like, tomorrow.