Celebrate Chinese New Year in Style
Famously prim, Singapore lets her hair down once a year for the annual Chinese New Year celebrationsSingapore is clean, organised and easy to get to from Heathrow. It is unlike most of South East Asia except for during the two week festivities of Chinese New Year, when the whole city joins in the celebrations. There is a large Chinese expatriate community in Singapore but the event has grown to the extent that many native Singaporeans participate. Many people buy and wear new clothes and clean out their houses to symbolise out with the old and in with the new. Children are given little red packets of money, known as 'Hong bao' and families eat enormous banquets together at Reunion dinners.
The streets are lit with hundreds of red lanterns and the sound of traditional music wafts through the streets along with the delicious scent of sizzling treats from Singapore's many street vendors. Chinatown is really the place to be and is where the festivities kick off properly with the Chinatown Street Light Up. The streets fill with lion dancers, dragons and fire eaters. There are also dance routines from the female dancers weaving intricate patterns in the air with their giant fans.
The highlight of the festivities is the Chingay Parade where the streets fill with floats, dancers, enormous dragons, musicians and more. The acts are not all traditionally Chinese; there are samba dancers and Taiwanese acrobats, Ghanaian dance troupes and Singaporean firecracker dancers. This festival is increasingly being dubbed the Mardi Gras of the East.
