--- title: Google's Latest Doodle Heralds Lunar New Year of the Rooster description: Lunar New Year is celebrated across East Asia and falls on the first new moon between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 each year canonical: https://time.com/4651347/googles-doodle-rooster-chinese-lunar-new-year/ author: Joseph Hincks article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-27T03:34:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:40:31.255Z og:title: Google's Latest Doodle Heralds the Year of the Rooster og:description: Lunar New Year falls on the first new moon between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 each year og:url: https://time.com/4651347/googles-doodle-rooster-chinese-lunar-new-year/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt328d792b140bec9e/6988b786656a3f3947bce8de/lunar-new-year-2017-hong-kong-taiwan-china-5718568032272384-hp2x.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: lunar-new-year-2017-hong-kong-taiwan-china-5718568032272384-hp2x og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google's Latest Doodle Heralds the Year of the Rooster twitter:description: Lunar New Year falls on the first new moon between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 each year twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt328d792b140bec9e/6988b786656a3f3947bce8de/lunar-new-year-2017-hong-kong-taiwan-china-5718568032272384-hp2x.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google's Latest Doodle Heralds the Year of the Rooster by [Joseph Hincks](https://time.com/author/joseph-hincks/) ## Joseph Hincks Jan 27, 2017 3:34 AM UTC  Google's Doodle welcoming the Year of the Fire Rooster. Google's Doodle welcoming the Year of the Fire Rooster. by [Joseph Hincks](https://time.com/author/joseph-hincks/) ## Joseph Hincks Jan 27, 2017 3:34 AM UTC The letters spelling out Google were festooned in red Friday to herald the 2017 Lunar New Year in Google’s latest Doodle. The doodle — which features firecrackers, fried dumplings and traditional Chinese decorations _—_ marks the turning of the Chinese zodiac from monkey to rooster. Each year of the Chinese zodiac is associated with both an animal and one of five elements. 2017 is the year of the fire rooster, which [according to lore](http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-zodiac/rooster.htm) is “trustworthy, with a strong sense of timekeeping and responsibility.” Lunar New Year — which is sometimes called Chinese New Year even though it is celebrated across East Asia — falls on the first new moon between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 each year, Google [explains](https://www.google.com/doodles/lunar-new-year-2017-hong-kong-taiwan-china?hl=en). It’s a time for families to clean their houses, gather together and enjoy festive meals. And just like Christmas, it’s also, notoriously, a time when older relatives bug singletons about why they don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend, young couples about when they’re going to get married, and newly weds about why they don’t hurry up and have a baby already. Along with grandmotherly prodding, Lunar New Year is marked by firecrackers and lion dances, in which revelers don papier-mâché masks and flash silken tails to crashing cymbals. The din and the prominence of the color red were traditionally thought to scare off the _nian_, a mythical beast said to attack ancient villages every New Year’s Day. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4651347/googles-doodle-rooster-chinese-lunar-new-year/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4651347/googles-doodle-rooster-chinese-lunar-new-year/"},"headline":"Google's Latest Doodle Heralds the Year of the Rooster","datePublished":"2017-01-27T03:34:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:40:31.255Z","description":"Lunar New Year falls on the first new moon between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 each year","url":"https://time.com/4651347/googles-doodle-rooster-chinese-lunar-new-year/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Google","Google Doodle","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt328d792b140bec9e/6988b786656a3f3947bce8de/lunar-new-year-2017-hong-kong-taiwan-china-5718568032272384-hp2x.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joseph Hincks","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joseph-hincks/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt328d792b140bec9e/6988b786656a3f3947bce8de/lunar-new-year-2017-hong-kong-taiwan-china-5718568032272384-hp2x.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"lunar-new-year-2017-hong-kong-taiwan-china-5718568032272384-hp2x","caption":"Google's Doodle welcoming the Year of the Fire Rooster.","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4651347/googles-doodle-rooster-chinese-lunar-new-year/","name":"Google's Latest Doodle Heralds the Year of the Rooster"}}]}] ```