Happy Spring Festival!
Gong Xi Fa Cai
Today is the Spring Festival, better known as the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year! This year is called the "Year of the Golden Ox", and I hope that it will be a luckier one than the Year of the Golden Rat was.
The day leading up to the festival (New Year's Eve, I suppose) was a remembrance day, when Thai-Chinese families set out offerings for their ancestors at their spirit houses.
Everywhere you look, everyone is wearing Chinese red for good luck, and every shop and mall is decorated for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
I had wanted to go to Chinatown for the festivities. Even after seven years in Thailand, I've never gotten around to doing that. It will have to be next year, though. Due to COVID-19 the celebrations this year are much more subdued than usual, and I think it's still best to avoid any sort of crowds.
I have enjoyed seeing the decorations up at various shopping malls around the city, however.
Today, which is actually the first day of the 15-day Spring Festival (New Year's Day), I happened to be at Central Department Store at my local shopping mall, when I heard the loud and excited sounds of a Lion Dance!
The Lion Dance is a traditional Chinese performance that is said to attract good luck and fortune. It is most often performed at Chinese New Year and at other Chinese cultural festivals.
Accompanied by the sounds of cymbals and drums, two lions in red and gold danced and wove their way throughout the department store in an exuberant parade.
These are the sorts of things that still make living in Bangkok so exciting, even after so many years. It's just never a boring city! Who would expect a Chinese parade right in the middle of an upscale department store?
Happy Chinese New Year!
This isn't one of my new vlogs, but it is a short clip that I shot at the mall. This is the traditional Chinese Lion Dance that I saw in the department store.
No comments:
Post a Comment