Beijing. People in Asia welcomed the Lunar New Year on Saturday with family gatherings, festivals and visits to temples to request blessings.
This is the most important holiday in China, a time to gather with family and friends and enjoy festive banquets. Each year is named following one of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac, and this is the Year of the Dragon, which in Chinese communities is considered the most favorable.
In China, the Year of the Dragon is also very popular for giving birth, because many couples hope that their children will possess the qualities that the dragon symbolizes: strength, power and success.
Many residents in Hong Kong dressed in red, the lucky color in Chinese culture, to celebrate the beginning of the new year. At their gatherings they savored rice and turnip cakes, and children received red envelopes with money as a blessing from their married relatives. The outdoor displays and floral displays set up for the occasion offered revelers the chance to pose for eye-catching photos.
In Beijing, crowds flocked to temple fairs to watch traditional folk performances and buy snacks and artwork at stalls. Many lit fire sticks to pray for good health and fortune.
In addition to the Chinese-majority societies of the Greater China region, the holiday is also celebrated in Japan, Vietnam and in the Chinese diaspora.
In Myanmar and Malaysia, worshipers visited temples to ask for good luck and blessings. In Dharamshala, India, exiled Tibetan monks also participated in ceremonies to mark the new year.
In Taiwan and other areas, highways were jammed and flights were jammed as residents traveled home to visit family or use the roughly week-long holiday as a chance to vacation abroad.
Long lines of cars clogged South Korean highways as millions of people left the densely populated region of Seoul, the capital, to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families across the country.
Royal palaces and other tourist sites were also packed with visitors wearing colorful traditional “hanbok” robes. Groups of North Korean refugees from the still-unresolved 1950-1953 civil war bowed to the north in traditional family rituals in the southern border town of Paju.
The party comes amid rising tensions with North Korea, which has increased its weapons tests aimed at overcoming regional missile defenses and has issued provocative threats of a nuclear conflict with its southern neighbor.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol began the celebration with a message of gratitude to his country’s soldiers, saying that their services along “the barbed wire, sea and sky of the front line” allowed the country to enjoy from the party.
Vietnam also celebrated the Lunar New Year, known in that country as Tet.
In cities with large overseas Asian communities, particularly New York and San Francisco, parades and commemorations are also held.