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Firecrackers,
lion dances, music and performances mark the New Year for Leicester’s
thriving Chinese Community.
New Year is
considered everyone’s birthday by the Chinese. The date of the Chinese
New Year, which is also known as the Spring Festival, falls on the
second new moon after the winter solstice.
Preparations
for Chinese New Year start many weeks before with the buying of
presents and decorations and cleaning the house to sweep away ill
fortune. Houses are decorated with red paper, for good luck. And
door and window frames are painted red.
The old year
is driven out with noise (cymbals and fireworks). Celebrations end
with a Lantern Festival when lanterns of all colours (except white,
the colour of mourning) are hung.
This year is
the Year of the Horse (specifically this year it is actually the
Black Horse) and by the Chinese calendar we're in the year 4699.
Leicester has
a Chinese population of around 3,000 people and with 300 Chinese
restaurants in the city, it's not surprising to learn that 90% of
them work in catering.
Hundreds of
people will be joining celebrations at Leicester University on Sunday.
And special celebrations were also taking place today in the city
centre with a stall in The Shires shopping centre and a procession
from the Town Hall Square to the Peking Restaurant on Charles Street.
Paul Ng, of
the Leicester Chinese Community Centre, said Chinese New Year is
a time to visit loved ones and enjoy traditional foods representing
good luck such as dumplings and dried oysters which represent good
luck for business. After the feast the evening is spent playing
cards and games before fireworks at midnight.
As it's also
Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday in the Christian calendar) why not combine
both celebrations by making Peking
Duck - the food of the gods surely?
Photographs by Dipak Joshi of Roots, Joint initiative of East
Midlands Arts and BBC Radio Leicester
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