Sydney street parties to draw crowds

The Australian city of Sydney boasts one of the biggest Lunar New Year festivals outside Asia.

More than 1.4 million people are expected to welcome the Year of the Pig during the city’s celebrations, which will begin on Feb 1 and run until Feb 10.

In the vibrant and bustling Chinatown quarter alone — the heart of the festivities — around 300,000 visitors are expected to delight in the sights and sounds of traditional Chinese culture while welcoming in a new year full of prosperity and good luck.

Sydney Lunar Festival will welcome tourists from around the world, as well as Sydney’s multicultural Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, and Malaysian communities, to celebrate the Year of the Pig.

The festivities are scattered around Sydney, from Chinatown and Darling Harbour in the center, to the northeastern suburb of Chatswood and Cabramatta in Sydney’s southwest.

What was once a celebration confined to Sydney’s Chinatown has now become a major event on the city’s social calendar and is enjoyed by all Sydney residents.

Dave Platter, global public relations and communications director for Juwai.com, a Chinese website for buyers of overseas property, said: “Most of my colleagues are Chinese and in Shanghai. At this time of year, all of them are sharing their plans on WeChat. What they will do, where they will go, and which family members they will visit.

“It makes me a bit jealous, really. They are all taking a week off and spending time with family, while my parents and siblings are far away. We don’t even get a long lunch!

“I’m an Anglo married to an Australian woman of Chinese descent, so the traditions of Chinese New Year are new to me. For both of us, we have had to learn from friends and the media how to celebrate. We think Chinese New Year is what you make it. It’s a time of hope and promise, when you cherish family and take stock of where you are going in life.

“I want my kids to know their Chinese roots because it’s a part of who they are. … It seems so alien to them. I just hope that one day they’ll realize that not only are they American and Australian, but they are also Chinese.”

William Lin, who runs as a computer repair business in Sydney, emigrated to Australia from Guangzhou, Guangdong province in 1989.

For Lin and his Australianborn family, the Lunar New Year is still a big event.

“Although we are Australian, we still maintain some of our traditions,” he said.

He said the Lunar New Year “is still important to us and I want the kids to feel an attachment to their heritage”.