The Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year is upon us and Google joins in the celebration with some digital goodies over on the Google app, Google Search, and even through Gboard’s Emoji Kitchen. When you search for “Chinese New Year”, “Lunar New Year” or “Year of the Tiger”, you’ll get some digital fireworks and even an appearance by the Google tiger emoji. Over on the kitchen where you can mix and match different emojis, the tigers are taking center stage as you can now combine them with other emojis.
Because fireworks are an integral part of Chinese New Year celebrations, that’s the Easter egg that you’ll get when you search for related terms on desktop, tablet, or mobile. Well, digital fireworks of course. After the page launches normally, you’ll then get the digital fireworks show on your screen. If it doesn’t work on your mobile initially, there’s a dedicated button you can tap so the fireworks show will start and you can also share it, as per 9 to 5 Google.
It’s not just regular fireworks that you’ll see. They actually explode into a tiger emoji shape since 2022 is the Year of the Tiger. It’s a catch, or rather, screenshot me if you can situation as it doesn’t last that long on the screen and will fade out after a few seconds. There’s no indication how long these Chinese New Year-related easter eggs will remain available so if you want to see your screen digitally exploding into fireworks, do it now while it’s still there.
And speaking of tigers, if you’d like to play around with tiger emojis all year round, you can do so with Gboard’s Emoji Kitchen. If you’re not yet familiar with it, it’s a feature on the virtual keyboard where you can combine two supported emojis to form a new one. The latest Gboard update, version 11.4, now supports tigers so you can create various emoji combinations, like a literal tiger king. You can have a sunglasses-wearing tiger, a cat wearing a tiger suit, and even a tiger-colored loaf of bread.
These are just some of the fun digital things that Google brings to various occasions, which of course includes the always-awaited Google Doodles. So to all those who celebrate this holiday, Gong Xi Fa Cai! 恭喜發財!
