2024 RT Amination Banner.gif

China Daily

Focus> Photo> Content
Tuesday, February 05, 2019, 16:09
Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations around the world
By Agencies
Tuesday, February 05, 2019, 16:09 By Agencies

People hold floral bouquets and sticks of incense as they pray at the Lama Temple in Beijing, Feb 5, 2019. Chinese people are celebrating the first day of the Lunar New Year on Feb 5, 2019, the Year of the Pig on the Chinese zodiac. (MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / AP)

BEIJING — Asia welcomed the lunar Year of the Pig on Tuesday with visits to temples, family banquets and the world's biggest travel spree.

My first wish is for world peace. Everyone has food to eat, employment and houses to live in. The elderly also hope the government will take better care of them

Lana Wong,

Actress, Hong Kong

Celebrations took place throughout the region, from Beijing and Seoul to Hanoi and Singapore.

The streets of Beijing and other major Chinese cities were quiet and empty after millions of people left to visit relatives or travel abroad during the year's biggest family holiday.

Families gathered at home for multigenerational banquets. Companies, shops and government offices closed for official holidays that ranged from two days in South Korea to a week in China.

Worshippers stood in line for hours at Hong Kong's Wong Tai Sin Temple to welcome the new year by lighting incense.

Lana Wong, a prominent Hong Kong actress, wore a pig costume for the event.

"My first wish is for world peace," said Wong, 88. "Everyone has food to eat, employment and houses to live in. The elderly also hope the government will take better care of them."

In Beijing, performers in traditional Qing dynasty robes strummed zithers for a re-enactment at sunrise of a sacrificial ceremony at the Chinese capital's Temple of Earth park.

Performers stand during a Qing Dynasty ceremony in which emperors prayed for good harvest and fortune at a temple fair at Ditan Park in Beijing, Feb 5, 2019. (MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / AP)

An actor portraying an emperor bowed before an altar as dozens of people in ceremonial dress behind him.

Acrobats and drummers also performed. Vendors sold toys branded with the British cartoon character Peppa Pig, which is enjoying a surge of popularity for the Year of the Pig.

"My wishes for new year are a promotion, a raise and finding a boyfriend," said a spectator, Cui Di, a 28-year-old employee of a foreign company.

The holiday in mainland China is marked by the biggest annual travel boom as hundreds of millions of people visit their home towns or travel abroad.

The railway ministry forecast mainland travelers would make 413 million trips during the three-week period around the holiday.

In Bangkok, people lit incense sticks and burned paper money and other symbolic offerings for deceased relatives despite government appeals to avoid contributing to smog.

Some shopkeepers sold symbolic ballots to burn as offerings following official promises of an election this year, the first after four years of military rule.

A woman holds sticks of incense as she prays at the Lama Temple in Beijing, Feb 5, 2019. Chinese people are celebrating the first day of the Lunar New Year on Feb 5, 2019, the Year of the Pig on the Chinese zodiac. (MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / AP)

An Indonesian ethnic Chinese woman holds incense sticks as she pray during the celebration of the Lunar New Year at a temple on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, Feb 5, 2019. (TATAN SYUFLANA / AP)

Yangon Region Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein, second right, and China's Ambassador Hong Liang, right, place their hands on a plasma globe during the opening ceremony of the Lunar New Year, Feb 5, 2019, in the Chinatown area of Yangon, Myanmar. (THEIN ZAW / AP)

People visit statues of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's late leaders, Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il, to lay bouquets of flowers in Pyongyang, DPRK, on Lunar New Year's Day, Feb 5, 2019. (JON CHOL JIN / AP)

People watch a shadow puppet show at the prestigious Civic Square in Helsinki, Finland, Feb 4, 2019. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

Chinese Ambassador to Serbia Chen Bo (front) delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of Chinese Light Festival in Kalemegdan Park in downtown Belgrade, Serbia, on Feb 4, 2019. The Chinese Light Festival is held from Feb 4 to Feb 24 to celebrate the Lunar New Year. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

Huang Ping (fourth from right), the Chinese consul general in New York, rang the opening bell at Nasdaq on the eve of the Lunar New Year, on Feb 4, 2019. (PHOTO / VCG)

Fireworks lit up against the backdrop of the Sydney Opera House in celebration of the Lunar New Year, in Sydney, Australia, Feb 4, 2019. (PHOTO / IC)

A light show is seen at Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, to celebrate the Lunar New Year in Downtown Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Feb 4, 2019. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

The Tokyo Tower is illuminated in red to celebrate the Lunar New Year in Tokyo, Japan, on Feb 4, 2019.  (PHOTO / AGENCIES)

Share this story

CHINA DAILY
HONG KONG NEWS
OPEN
Please click in the upper right corner to open it in your browser !