The Malaysia Airlines’ Chinese New Year Advert That Won The Hearts Of Many

With the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebrations right around the corner, a recent advertisement released by Malaysia Airlines for the festival won the hearts of all who watched it. It garnered thousands of views in a mere two days and multiple cheerful and positive comments from people of all races, especially from the majority of those actually celebrating the holiday.

Titled “A truly Malaysian greeting”, the video presented a handful of non-Chinese Malaysians speaking impressively fluent Mandarin throughout the length of the video while stating their wishes for the new year, as well as good wishes to those celebrating the holiday in the coming days.

Reactions to the video were overwhelmingly positive, with majority of the comments congratulating MAS on its simplicity with Malaysia’s racial harmony and diversity represented in the video. Some watchers even went further to say the cast’s fluency in the language was better than their own, despite it being their mother tongue.

In reality, the ability of a non-Chinese person to be able to speak fluent Mandarin in a country as multilingual and multicultural as Malaysia is hardly uncommon. In this case, it is more of what the video represents than the actual phenomena that should be paid attention to.

The Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, is a celebration held once a year to signify the ringing in of the new year based on the Lunar calendar. It is a centuries-old celebration with many traditions as a result of the festival’s age, ranging from the signature red colour often used throughout the celebrations to signify good fortune and joy to the loud and thrilling lion dances reenacting the story of the monster ‘Nian‘.

Although Chinese New Year is only technically celebrated by Chinese people, in countries like Singapore and Malaysia, festivities and celebrations are often found throughout the whole country no matter the majority or minority of the demographic in the area.

Schools host performances, share traditional foods  (e.g dumplings, Nian Gao, etc.) and encourage them to attend school in their traditional clothes instead of their uniforms to celebrate while shopping malls are lavishly decorated in gold and red lanterns, centrepieces and the like. Family, friends and neighbours are constantly invited to join in the social gatherings brought about by the festival despite not celebrating it themselves. These are merely the basics of the racial harmony most Malaysians and Singaporeans are proud to be able to preach.

As a result, there is a basic understanding between all citizens when CNY rolls around it’s roots and traditions. It is a sharing of culture ingrained in our societies as we encourage and invite one another to participate in festivities. Three other festivals are celebrated to the same magnitude: Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Deepavali and Christmas.

Diversity and multiculturalism, while not perfect, play a massive part in Malaysian society. This sharing and understanding of each other’s culture is portrayed almost flawlessly in showing non-Chinese people wishing well to those that do celebrate the festival in their own mother tongue language—a heartwarming, respectful exchange between people of different backgrounds.