• by Joel Chong (singapore)
• Friday, February 12, 2010
• Inter Press Service

The impact of the global recession may still be around, but Chinese communities all over Asia are bent on letting the Year of the Tiger come in with a festive, prosperous roar on Sunday.

The Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year, is the most celebrated festival in the Chinese calendar for the estimated 7 million overseas Chinese population, found in countries like Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand — and the 1.3 billion mainland Chinese. This year, the lunar new year begins on Feb. 14.

Traditionally a no-expense-spared holiday, fireworks and extravagant decorations and are staples in any Chinese community, ranging from lion dances, lavish meals and liberal doses of the colour red. Products around the tiger theme — paper-cut tigers and lanterns included — are common too, as well as traditional exchanges of round-shaped fruits for good luck and prosperity.

In China, millions of internal migrants find their way back to their hometowns every year, leaving train stations and airports swamped with jostling passengers ahead of the holidays, also called the Spring Festival. Railway ministry estimates put the figure of travellers at 210 million. Just last week, a stampede outside a train station in southern province of Guangzhou left one migrant worker dead.

Others, like Wu Xiaoyan, prefer to forgo their yearly pilgrimage home. 'It’s too much (to travel back for Chinese New Year), and after all I visit my parents other times of the year, so it’s not too bad,' she said an in interview. Wu, who works as a purchasing officer in Shanghai, is originally from the south-west city of Kunming, Yunnan, some 2,000 kilometres south-west of Beijing.

'But I know they’ll be doing the same thing as me on Chinese New Year eve, so probably that serves as a consolation that I’m not there with them,' she laughs, referring to watching China’s annual New Year Gala on state-run China Central Television.

CCTV’s Chinese New Year Gala is viewed by an estimated 700 million viewers every year and has become a mainstay in China’s Chinese New Year celebrations since its inception in 1982. Advertising revenues from the programme have reportedly exceeded 650 million yuan (95 million U.S. dollars).

Usually tense cross-straits relations also seem to have thawed, albeit temporarily, over the warm festive celebrations, as China and Taiwan for the first time jointly organised the 1,500 year-old Qinhuai Lantern Fair in the mainland Chinese city of Nanjing in Jiangsu that began two days ago.

Taiwanese lanterns were displayed alongside those from the Jiangsu province, while traditional Jiangsu Qinhuai lanterns also made their way to the city of Chiayi in Taiwan as part of the Taiwanese official lantern festival.

'The lantern fair will promote cultural, tourist and economic exchanges, and cooperation between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan,' Nanjing mayor Ji Jianye said at the fair’s opening ceremony.

Further down south in Thailand, Yaowarat Road in Bangkok’s Chinatown is all dressed up in red as the Thai Chinese community prepares for the festive season. Every year, the opening ceremony of Chinese New Year celebrations at Yaowarat is presided by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, daughter of the Thai king.

'I don’t go back to China (any more) for Chinese New Year,' said Raluek Niratpattanasai, a street vendor in Bangkok. 'After all I have my own family here now. My wife is here, my children are here, and you’re supposed to be with your family during Chinese New Year, right?' he added. Raluek came to Thailand with his parents from Jieyang, Guangdong 50 years ago.

In countries like Singapore, where ethnic Chinese make up 75 percent of the country’s population, the Chinese New Year is a national holiday that is celebrated with country-wide parades and fairs that stretch through the traditional 15-day new year period.

For Andrew Winarto however, the Chinese New Year holds much more emotional significance. The businessman from Jakarta returns to Indonesia each lunar new year, despite being based in Singapore.

'When I was a teenager (in Indonesia) we couldn’t even wear red during the (Chinese) New Year you know,' he said. 'It was quite miserable. My father would sneak out to buy candles, which was illegal, and we’d just celebrate quietly at home with each other,' he added, referring to the ban on Chinese New Year or ‘Imlek’ celebrations in Indonesia under the Suharto dictatorship.

Lunar new year celebrations and public performances were banned in the sixties and dragon and lion dances, which are staple performances by Chinese communities all around the world, were forbidden to be performed in public. Restrictions were only lifted entirely in 2001, due to changes announced by the late Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, and the Chinese new year was declared a holiday the year after.

'Now you see decorations and lanterns in big shopping malls -- it wasn’t anything like that,' said Winarto. 'But at the end of the day, we’re still Chinese, no matter where we are or what passport (we hold). And we will celebrate the (Chinese) New Year, no matter where we are, or what it takes. It’s in us,' he said with a glimmer in his eyes.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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