Chinese communities celebrate Lunar New Year
GAIETY AND PIETY: While the main celebrations got under way in China, huge crowds gathered for events across the region
BANGKOK: Chinese communities across Asia celebrated the first day of the Year of the Rooster on Saturday with traditional dances and prayers, the media reported.
While the main celebrations got underway in China, huge crowds gathered for events across the region to share their wishes for an auspicious start to the Lunar New Year, Efe news reported.
In Thailand, which boasts of hosting the biggest Lunar New Year celebrations outside of China, the Year of the Rooster was rung in on Friday night with a parade in the capital’s Lumpini Park, which saw some participants dressed in traditional Chinese costumes.
“By putting in a touch of Thainess, we want to ensure that Thailand’s celebrations to mark the Chinese New Year 2017 will be unique and memorable for local and international tourists,” said Yuthasak Supasorn, Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
In Malaysia, hundreds of people gathered on Saturday to watch a traditional Chinese Lion Dance being performed at Kuala Lumpur’s Thean Hou Temple.
New Year’s revellers were also seen visiting the temple with their families for prayers and posing for photos with decorative lanterns.
Similar scenes were observed in the Philippines capital, where children from poor families donned makeshift dragon costumes as they performed dances in front of Chinese revellers in Manila’s China Town.
Filipino-Chinese spectators offered money to the dancers to wish them good luck.
In Taiwan, huge crowds gathered at the capital’s Longshan Temple, which was decorated with images of the rooster, where they burned incense and joined New Year prayers.
Scores of displaced people in South Korea whose home towns are in the North made their way to Imjingak, a park located near the Demilitarised Zone in the city of Paju, for an ancestor memorial service.
The annual holiday traditionally sees people in South Korea travel to their home towns to visit their families and pay homage to their ancestors. Celebrations for the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, will officially end on February 2, while the year will continue until February 15, 2018.