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Hundreds of millions of people across Asia began on Tuesday to mark the Lunar New Year with prayers, fireworks and festivities as China ushered in the Year of the Horse, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, succeeding the Year of the Snake.
The Lunar New Year, which coincides with the lunar calendar’s first new moon, is a 15-day celebration that takes place annually between 21 January and 20 February, the most important annual holiday in China and some other East Asian nations.
This year’s extended Lunar New Year holiday is expected to boost China’s economy, raising domestic consumption, a top objective for Beijing this year.
Chinese authorities say they are expecting to see a record 9.5 billion passenger trips, up from 9 billion the previous year, during the 40-day spring festival.
As every year, China celebrated the Lunar New Year with a TV show, and once again the humanoid robots were a central part of the performance Monday night.
One of the highlights of the CCTV Spring Festival gala was a martial arts performance by children and robots. For several minutes, humanoids from Unitree Robotics showed different sequences and even brandished swords.
The performance shows China’s push to develop more advanced robots powered by improved AI capabilities. In Taiwan, the solemn peal of a temple bell rang out 108 times — an auspicious number — as people flocked to the Baoan Temple in Taipei on Tuesday morning.
They lit incense sticks, bowed their heads and left offerings of colorful flower bouquets on outdoor tables on the temple grounds in Taiwan’s capital city.
Celebrations in Hong Kong, Fireworks in Vietnam
With celebrations being held across Asia, incense smoke wafted into the air at a temple in Hong Kong where people line up every year to make wishes for the new year at midnight.
Holding up a cluster of incense sticks, many bowed their heads several times before planting the sticks in containers placed in front of a temple hall.
While entertainers in Vietnam sang at an outdoor countdown event before multiple fireworks shows at several cities in the Southeast Asian nation, where the festival is called Tet.
Light shows lit up bridges and skyscrapers as the fireworks went off, and crowds clapped in rhythm to live pop music performances.
Chinese street fairs in Moscow
People sampled Chinese cuisine from stalls and strolled along snowy streets decorated with red lanterns and dragons as two weeks of events got underway Monday at various venues in the Russian capital.
The third annual Lunar New Year celebration comes at a time of warming relations between China and Russia—ties that have frustrated many European governments because of the war in Ukraine.
Argentines join celebrations in Buenos Aires
To commemorate the Lunar New Year, thousands of Argentineans flocked to Chinatown in Buenos Aires, where they witnessed martial arts exhibitions and dragon and lion dances on the main stage.
The Chinese immigrant community is among Argentina’s most dynamic, accounting for more than 180,000 people in the South American nation.