It's an Asian custom thing... A rotating menagerie of 12 animals featured for each year... I pay no attention to it for the most part.

Well, yeah, I know that. I'm just intrigued by all the decorating they have done at work. We don't even have Asian employees in the warehouse, everyone is black or hispanic.
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Well that's different then!

It's because it ushers in a new zodiac symbol that people can draw as a sexy furry. Western years don't have sexy furry mascots!

And this time it's bunnies. So, it's an excuse to draw bunnies.

I find myself bemused that the Chinese zodiac has no Pandas at all.

Pandas went extinct decades ago because they were the only animal species that needed to be trained to fuck.
What you see in Chinese zoos are people in fursuits. If your social credit goes low, you are punished to be a panda for a week.
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For some folks, that's not a punishment.

I mean I get it... and I would do it kinda like Squid Game, pay off my debts for a week in a Panda outfit.
a month if it rebuilds the roof on my house...

We have the Easter Bunny!
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Any excuse for a new holiday.

This. In Europe we got Halloween shoved down our throats a decade ago for this very reason.

And if you have to buy anything...!



_{(Like gazillions of red and gold decorations)}

Halloween... Sabhain... it's all pretty much the same... except the commercialization of Halloween has I think... gotten waaay out of control

Yeah, it's kind of a new Cinco de Mayo.
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wtf does Mayonnaise in the kitchen sink matter? I prefer Miracle Whip Anyway

We gave them Halloween, they gave us Lunar NY.

Eh, another excuse for a party.

But nobody is really partying for this, are just lots of Chinese decorations and posters telling us to dress in red.
Do they really do Halloween in China? It's probably banned for some reason, like they banned time travel.
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I don't know about China. But Halloween is huge in S. Korea and Japan. Although that could be from the long-term American military presence.

Guess it depends on the Asian population where you live. Here, where I'm at, they make up a large portion of the populace. So Lunar NY has a lot of interest. While its no Christmas, it still gets a lot of attention.

On top of the furry stuff, another in-between step I can think of though the 2000s and 2010s was Japanese artists having an increased online presence year by year, and a lot of Westerners watching them for the art whether they read Japanese or not. Subscribers would notice sudden upticks in certain animals being drawn, and that'd get their attention more than a restaurant's placemat.

Now, Japanese people themselves (since the 19th century) haven't paid attention to the old lunar calendar for much at all, aside from fortunetelling. They tie the Chinese Zodiac to the solar/Gregorian/"Western" calendar, anyhow, much to the annoyance of other Asians. Even so, I think that "manga culture" ended up being a gateway drug toward observing Chinese New Year, so to speak, at least among geekier people in the West, and then they became a vector

It's basically a Western reinterpretation of a foreign culture.
Similar to Cinco de Mayo, which Americans believe to be the Mexican equivalent of the 4Th of July, but actual Mexicans don't celebrate.
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Wait, in real life too? I've only ever seen it in online spaces thus far. Which makes a lot more sense to me, since those tend to be a lot more international, so a mixing of holidays would be expected to some degree, depending. But at least over here in central europe, it doesn't seem like there's much interest in it. Can't say that I am bothered by it one way or another. It's kinda pretty I guess?

Yeah, it's not that it bothers me. I'm intrigued because I never saw this level of attention being given to a foreign holiday. I guess recently companies have become so obsessed with "inclusiveness" that they will start decorating for every possible occasion... there are a handful of other countries that have their own calendar, soon we will have a New Year every week.
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Sept. 11, 2001
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9985453/
... had an additional level of awkwardness for Ethiopians (majority Coptic Christian) living in America because their New Year happened to fall* on that Gregorian date that year. Thing is, they either had to pass or just keep their celebration real' quiet because they didn't want anybody misinterpreting.
* no autumn pun intended

Chi-Coms. they are buying up a lot of businesses.
Cuban Communists (that you know OH So Well) were bad enough, but the Chi-Coms are Worse...