Chinese New Year Celebrations 2010

View the Chinese New Year Celebrations 2010 film

Text Version

Mayor of Tameside Cllr John Sullivan: On behalf of Tameside Council I'm delighted to be here today for our Chinese New Year celebrations. As well as events taking place in front of the Town Hall, there are also a number of family friendly activities taking place at Tameside Central Library and Art Gallery including Chinese arts and crafts, workshops, and Chinese food available there later this afternoon.

Chinese New Year, the most important of the Chinese traditional holidays is currently being celebrated all over the world and includes fireworks, visits to friends and family, and the liberal use of the colour red, often red clothing, and my tie today.

It's the year of the tiger this year, and tigers are born leaders, very confident, hard working and dynamic, those born under the influence of the tiger are noble, fearless and respected for their courage.

Next we're going to see a special lion dance and blessing by Northern Dragons (Manchester), who were established at the end of the 2006 to bring Lau-Gar Kung Fu a form of martial arts back to the area. The Lion dance we're about to see is symbolic in nature with the lion traditionally regarded as a guardian creature across much of Asia. It's usually performed at the ceremony to chase away evil spirits and to summon luck and fortune for the coming year. the lion is required to be blessed to awaken in spirit, so it can be used in future Lion dances including Chinese New Year where it is especially popular.

It therefore gives me great pleasure to introduce Northern Dragons (Manchester) and the Lion dance.

Dong-Chi Far See, Kung Hei Fat Choy - That means Happy New Year in Chinese if I said it right.