#chinese-new-year

#chinese-new-year

The Chinese New Year has been marked with a colourful parade in central London featuring, dancing, music and dragons. It marks the start of the Year of the Horse, which began on 17 February. The first day of the Chinese New Year falls on the new moon which appears between 21 January and 20 February every year. The London parade began in Trafalgar Square before moving up Charing Cross Road to Shaftesbury Avenue and then into Chinatown.

A fire broke out at a restaurant in Singapore's historic Chinatown district on the second day of Chinese New Year, casting an eerie red glow over streets packed with festive revellers and prompting a swift emergency response. No injuries were reported, but the blaze - which struck during one of the busiest periods of the lunar calendar - has renewed scrutiny of fire preparedness in the city-state's densely packed commercial heritage zones.

If you've got Monday off, get a head start on festivities honoring the Year of the Horse. Dig into Chinese cuisine at Empress by Boon, get lucky at Graton Resort and Casino, and party at Thrive City. Save some room for Fat Tuesday celebrations in the Mission and Bayview. It's also the return of Noise Pop, SF Beer Week, and the Black Choreographers Festival in case you need another reason to celebrate.

Christmas is lovely, but my kids think Chinese new year is by far the best holiday. I might be biased, but, unusually, I am inclined to agree with them. As my eldest puts it, New clothes, cash, booze and food what's not to love? There's the added bonus that cash is absolutely more than acceptable in fact, it's de rigueur, so there's no shopping for mundane socks and smelly candles. Chinese new year is full of rituals and, just as at Christmas, every family has its own, but they are all variations on a theme. Symbolism looms large in Chinese culture, and at new year it centres around messages of prosperity, luck and family.

This at first glance look like one of the social media influencer dance troops that film in public places with total disregard for inconvenience created for pedestrians just trying to get on with their day but it was actually an organized music video shoot to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The snowboarders were likely told to carve around the dancers and perhaps throw up a little spray to liven things up but an unrehearsed blind side collision ended up knocking them down like bowling pins.