The Lunar New Year celebration runs through February 14, 2016.
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The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday sent a message to the Chinese people, wishing them a happy lunar new year, which falls on Monday.
That’s perfectly good news for places which are high on the list of Chinese tourists’ favorite winter destinations, with the Top Ten including Seoul, Bangkok, Phuket Island, Singapore, Hong Kong of China etc, according to Ctrip. Monkey years are thought to be unlucky for people born in them.
The Chinese Zodiac cycles through 12 animals, so the Year of the Monkey arrives every (yep, you guessed it) 12 years.
Celebrities born under the year of the monkey include Nick Jonas, Tom Hanks, and Will Smith, along with historical figures Leonardo da Vinci and Charles Dickens.
But it’s not just London that will see celebrations for the Year of the Monkey, as Chinese communities in cities across the country, including Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham, will also host events.
Food is a big part of the celebration.
Shou Sui – This phrase means “after the New Year’s Eve dinner”, according to the Chinese New Years Info website.
The resort will dole out red envelopes worth more than NT$300,000 to visitors. The Chinese pronunciation is the same as the word for height or up, which makes it a fitting treat for a new year. It’s a “more modern concept” of the traditional feast, and typically features several courses of meat, vegetables, and dumplings, as well as the required fish plate. It was considered the most important festival on the calendar, and nearly all business stopped during the celebration. Another tradition is cleaning the house in the days leading up to the Chinese New Year, to prevent disease in the coming year.
Many of New York’s denizens passing through the square said they didn’t understand at the very beginning why so many Chinese people were gathering here.
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“She has been around with us for six, seven years now, but this is something new so it’s kind of touching”, an emotional Lana told KYW Newsradio. Thanks to the new progressive, relatively-liberal policies adopted by the Communist Party in 1978, the Spring Festival got revived by the traditionalists with a new lease of life for generations to come.
