Google Search Easter egg celebrates Chinese New Year and Year of the Tiger

Damien Wilde | Jan 28 2022 - 3:17 pm PT

Chinese New Year Easter egg in Google Search

With Chinese Year New set to begin on February 1, 2022, Google Search has added a neat Easter egg to help celebrate the Year of the Tiger.

If you search for ”Chinese New Year,” “Year of the Tiger,” or even ”Lunar New Year” on Google.com on desktop, tablet, or mobile, the page will initially load as it would normally. But, just a few milliseconds later, your screen will be lit up with a firework show similar to the Pride and Star Wars Day Easter eggs that we saw back in 2021.

On mobile, the experience differs slightly. If the Easter egg doesn’t load instantly, there is a dedicated button that will start the firework display on your smartphone screen. This button appears on all devices once the Easter egg has finished alongside a share option.

In another little nod to the Year of the Tiger, the fireworks explode into what looks very much like the Google tiger emoji before fading out and disappearing. Given that 2022 is the Year of the Tiger, we’re not entirely sure if searching for the term will bring up the Easter egg throughout the year, but we’d wager this will be limited to the Chinese New Year period.

Despite the fact that modern China utilizes the Gregorian calendar, the traditional Chinese calendar is still used in relation to holidays. The start of a new Lunar cycle is celebrated with Chinese New Year celebrations focused on removing the bad and the old, while welcoming in the new and good. As such, the celebration sees millions across the globe follow traditions such as the sharing of red hong bao packets gifted to children and unmarried adults during the holiday. The contents can range from a few dollars to some seriously large sums in some cases.

This Easter egg coincides with the expanded Gboard Emoji Kitchen lineup that includes tons of tigers to help celebrate Chinese New Year and the start of the Year of the Tiger.