From lion dances to parades to markets, communities far and wide are celebrating the Lunar New Year
By Andy Goldberg, Bronwyn Sloan, Fiona Smith, Dewi Kurniawati
DPA, CORK, IRELAND, JAKARTA, INDONESIA, LOS ANGELES, PHNOM PENH,
Around the world, communities are celebrating Lunar New Year, which begins on Feb. 7 and ends Feb. 10. Here, a look at what's going on in places as diverse as Ireland, Indonesia, the US and Cambodia.
IRELAND
A group of six-year-olds streams out of Summercove National School in Kinsale, County Cork, brandishing their carefully drawn rats as the school in southwest Ireland gears up to celebrate Lunar New Year.
"I was delighted to see her friends taking such an interest in Lunar New Year, wanting to draw pictures and learn more," says Geraldine Fay, mother of Abby, 6, and Lily, 4, who were adopted from China.
"We feel as if we have taken their culture and we would like to try and give some of it back to them. I try to make as big a deal of it as I can," says Fay, who is also pleased with the openness of the teachers' attitudes towards her daughters' culture.
"I have books and information and I send in a DVD to the school and playschool so that the children can see the customs," Fay says.
Indonesian dancers perform the lion dance in front of a temple in Jakarta.
"The teachers tell them about the ... signs of the Zodiac, the story of the animals' races and about sweeping out the bad luck."
In a popular move, Fay also distributes hong bao, red envelopes with chocolate money and sweets inside, to the children on Lunar New Year's Eve.
"The playschool and school also teach the children a phonetic pronunciation of Happy New Year in Chinese."
According to Ireland's Central Statistics Office, there are over 11,000 Chinese people living in the country, but it is widely believed the figure is actually as high as 100,000.
Events kicked off with the opening of the Chinese Film Festival at the Irish Film Center on Friday, Feb. 1 with director Jia Zhangke's (賈樟柯) film Still Life (三峽好人), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival in 2006.
The Lunar New Year festival in Ireland also includes an international table tennis tournament, a literature and music exhibition featuring readings by Chinese writers and a Chinese Creative Writing course.
INDONESIA
It was late in the old town area of Indonesia's capital when 25 youths were sweating, laughing and shouting to each other under the dark open sky while practicing their dancing and jumping moves to the sound of a drum and cymbals.
One of them was Syafri Sanusi, a 10-year-old boy who takes part as the head of the Barongsai, which means "to dance like a lion."
The traditional dance consists of two people in lion costumes performing moves based on wushu, a full-contact sport derived from traditional martial arts.
"I become the head of the lion because I am small," Syafri said, welcomed by burst of laughs from his friends in the dance group. "But that's okay, I like performing the lion dance very much."
Syafri is indigenous Indonesian and a Muslim who joined the Kong Ha Hong, a popular lion dance group based in Jakarta, two years ago. Some might think that to be a very odd combination.
"Not anymore!" though, says Ronald Sjarif, the caretaker and owner of the dance group who was also a dancer. "Today … it is absolutely a natural way."
Indonesia comprises more than 300 native ethnic groups that speak more than 800 dialects and have several religions. The country's national ideology, Pancasila, promotes unity through diversity.
Former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000 lifted the bans that the late former dictator, Suharto, had imposed. That year, celebrations were held in Jakarta for the first time in decades.
As the celebration approaches, Sjarif's troupe practices for their performances. Ethnic Chinese people prepare to usher in the Year of the Rat and the dancers go over their moves on 3m poles, carrying the lion costume that weighs about 5kg.
THE US
For millions of Chinese-Americans, festivities marking the start of the Lunar New Year are an opportunity to celebrate their culture and expose it to Americans from other backgrounds.
"It's a time to showcase the richness of our culture and to engage our own community in special events," says Hope Chu, the communications manager of the Organization of Chinese-Americans, the largest ethnic Chinese organization in the country. "It's a time to connect with our ethnic heritage."
This year the US Postal Service is releasing a new stamp series to mark the Lunar New Year beginning with a stamp dedicated to the Year of the Rat, the first animal in the zodiac. The series will continue through the entire 12-year cycle.
In thousands of cities and towns across the country Chinese-Americans will perform in spectacular parades and host banquets, craft fairs and martial arts demonstrations. The largest events will take place in the three main centers of Chinese-American population: New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
CAMBODIA
Ho Chin Seng watches carefully as his Cambodian lion dancers, or mong sy, go through their paces at Tuen Fah Chinese School and Temple in the Cambodian capital.
"We are booked to dance for Sok Kong in a few days," he says, referring to Cambodia's leading petroleum tycoon. Seng's troupe is also a favorite with Senate President Chea Sim and Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Seng, of Chinese-Malaysian descent is in his early 40s and has been in Cambodia for a decade teaching lion dancing and other cultural arts.
Cambodia comes to a virtual halt during the Lunar New Year festival. Although it is not an official government holiday, Chinese roots run deep here and bosses are rarely angry when staff go to perform traditional New Year tasks - in fact, they usually do so too.
"Cambodia and China are strong allies, but also, most Cambodians have Chinese relatives or at least have a Chinese connection," says government spokesman Khieu Kanharith.
Although Cambodia will celebrate its own New Year in April, its zodiac mirrors the Chinese zodiac. Last year, the auspicious Year of the Golden Pig, Cambodian hospitals reported a significant increase in pregnancies and births.
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