Chinese Lantern Festival - The Year of the Dragon - 2024

 Welcome everyone to the Year of the Dragon - allbeit slightly early. But on Saturday night we visited the Chinese Lantern Festival in our International Friendship Garden. 

The Lantern Festival aims to promote reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness. The holiday marks the first full moon of the new lunar year and the end of the Chinese New Year. 

Chūn Jié, in China, marks the beginning of the Spring season. The Chinese Lantern Festival ( 元宵节 Yuán Xiāo Jié ) marks the final day of these celebrations. The lanterns symbolise people letting go of the past year and welcoming the new year with good fortune.

2024 is the year of Dragon based on Chinese zodiac. It's the year of wood dragon starting from Feb.10, 2024 to Jan.28, 2025. The Dragon is the fifth in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac signs. The Years of the Dragon include 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024...

Chinese Dragon is an imaginary animal, also the only fictitious creature in the 12 zodiac animals, which is composed of 9 animals, including the body of a snake, the horns of a deer, the head of an ox, the mouth of a crocodile, the claws of an eagle, and the scales of a fish. The Dragon enjoys a very high reputation in Chinese culture and it represents auspiciousness and imperial power since ancient times.

Chinese people regard themselves as descendants of the Chinese dragon and emperors entitled themselves exclusively as the 'dragon'. It is the token of authority, dignity, honor, success, luck, and capacity.  Chinese Zodiac

The personality traits of people born in the year of the dragon are: charismatic, intelligent, confident, powerful and they are naturally lucky and gifted. In everything that they do, they tend to do it to the best of their ability with high standards.

The image of the dragon dance below is from our Multi-Cultural Festival in 2020. 

Part of the Lantern Festival was the Chinese Wishing Tree where we were invited to write our dreams onto red paper and hang them from the tree. Experience the tradition of hope and abundance and let the Chinese Wishing Tree grant your wishes and usher in a year filled with blessings

Chinese wishing trees, money trees, and hong bao trees are a big part of Chinese New Year festivities. People toss their red ribbons up into the wishing tree with hope that it will stick and their wish will come true for good fortune in the coming year.

Over the last few months community members and children have been making the lanterns

There was also Chinese dancing to enjoy. 

And two girls made spinning light sticks and danced with them to Chinese music. 

I hope you have enjoyed this little look at the Chinese Lantern Festival. It is wonderful living in a multi-cultural community. Have you been to a Chinese Festival? Perhaps you might like to tell us about it in your comments. 

What sign of the Chinese Zodiac are you? I am the Goat. 

You might also like:

Chinese New Year - 2018

Chinese New Year - 2021

Multicultural Festival & Chinese New Year - 2020

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 
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Forza Dragon Boat Regatta, Bunbury, Western Australia

 Happy Chinese New Year and welcome to the Year of the Tiger.

I have blogged about Chinese New Year and dragon boat racing before: Chinese New Year 2021 and Chinese New Year 2018

In fact dragon boat racing has been my family's sport since 1990. And our club, the Forza Dragon Boat Club celebrated their 30th anniversary in September 2021. 

Whereas I don't dragon boat race anymore, my two sons still do. My eldest son is our current club coach. That's him in the first seat in this pic below. 

Last weekend our club hosted their annual regatta on the Leschenault Inlet in Bunbury in Western Australia. But first a little history about dragon boat racing. 

Traditionally celebrated on the 5^th day of the 5^th Chinese lunar month, the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival began over 2000 years ago to drive off evil spirits, ask the dragons to watch over their crops and worship the Dragon God.

The festival was later enriched by the legend of Qu (pronounced Chu) Yuan, a legendary scholar, poet and statesman, who was banished from the court when lies were told about him to the Emperor.  Despair caused Qu Yuan to throw himself from a cliff into the Mi Lo River in 278 BC.

Local fisherman raced out in their boats to recover his body, banging their drums and hitting their paddles on the water to scare the evil spirits away. They threw lumps of rice into the water as an offering to Qu Yuan’s spirit, and to prevent the fish from eating his body.

Before racing the eyes are painted onto the dragons to bring them life and give them sight.

Dragon boating is now an international competitive sport for men, women and families. It encourages good sportsmanship, maintains the cultural traditions, and encourages acceptance and respect of all involved.

It is also a great way to get fit, make new friends, improve physical and mental health, enjoy our waterways, and the opportunity to travel and compete at elite levels.

On Saturday two new dragon boats were named after two life members - The Kusin and the Barbera in recognition of their work for the club over many years. Grant and Pina Barbera were the founders of our club. And Mark Kusin has worked tirelessly for our club and association over many years. 

Dotting the eyes of the dragon

On Saturday my husband and I were on-water controllers at the regatta in our power boat, so it was a good opportunity for me to take some pics.

The races on Saturday were all two boat match races. There was some fast and furious competition. The boats sit 20 paddlers, with a drummer on the front, and the sweep (the steerer) at the back. It is a true team sport as timing is paramount for successful racing. 

It is a great sport for families, and men and women of all ages. I have always enjoyed that men and women and families can compete equally in the same boat. There are also many teams around the world for breast cancer survivors, including one in Bunbury, the Crewsaders. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you have enjoyed this little look at dragon boat racing. Do you have a family sport? Perhaps you would like to tell us about it in your comments. 

I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 
I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

   
MosaicMonday at Letting Go of the Bay Leaf
Sharon's Sovenirs 
Our World Tuesday
Pictorial Tuesday 
ThroughMy Lens 
Image-in-ing
My corner of the world through my camera 
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global hosted by Randomosity. 
       and Little bird - Pienilintu
Thankful Thursday 
Welcome to Nature Thursday
The Lovin' Life Team over at: Deep Fried Fruit

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Happy Chinese New Year - gong hei fat choy

Gong hei fat choy as they say in Cantonese 

or in Mandarin, xin nian kuai le (pronounced shin nee-an kwai le)

2021 is the Chinese Year of the Ox - In Chinese culture the ox is a valued animal. Because of its role in agriculture, positive characteristics, such as being hardworking and honest, are attributed to it.

Chinese New Year 2021 falls on Friday, February 12th, 2021, and celebrations culminate with the Lantern Festival on February 26th, 2021

Began over 2000 years ago, the lantern festival has developed many meanings. It celebrates family reunions and society. It features ancient spiritual traditions.

In our city on the weekend of 13-14 February the Chinese New Year Festival committee set up an amazing lantern display in the International Friendship Gardens.  Many of the lanterns were made by local school children and powered by little battery candles. It must have taken hours and hours of work to set up and turn on all those lights and it looked truly amazing. Here are some pics

This is the entrance to the labyrinth in the gardens, where lanterns were placed around the pathway to follow. 

We are so fortunate in Western Australia to currently have no community spread Covid cases, so there were many people at the festival in the gardens enjoying the lanterns. Traditionally the lantern festival is a time for families and our local festival certainly had a lovely family friendly feeling. 

You can find out more about Chinese New Year here - Chinese New Year

What Chinese zodiac year were you born in? I was born in the Year of the Goat. 

You can find out your year here - Chinese Zodiac

Strangely, just after I finished this post, my Chinese picture which I bought in Singapore several years ago, threw itself off the wall, breaking the glass. I wonder what that means???

You might also like:

Chinese New Year - 2018

Multicultural Festival & Chinese New Year 2020

You can also visit this Facebook page to see more images from our local festival - Bunbury Chinese New Year Festival

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you and yours are doing well. And that we will soon see a slowing down of Covid cases around the world. 

I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

   

All Seasons

MosaicMonday at Letting Go of the Bay Leaf

Sharon's Sovenirs 

Our World Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 

Image-in-ing
My corner of the world through my camera 
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global hosted by Randomosity. 

       and Little bird - Pienilintu

Thankful Thursday 
Der-Natur-Thursday 

The Lovin' Life Team over at: Deep Fried Fruit
 Month end link up @ Live love craft me

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Multi-cultural Festival and Chinese New Year

Hi folks, and welcome to another week. 
Last week I brought to you some images from the Bunbury Multi-cultural Festival Night Under the Stars concert and the dancing of my Spanish dance group - Sol y Sombra Spanish Dance Company -  

I promised you a few more pics from the festival and here they are.  Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of the delicious foods that were being produced in the food-trucks! 

The evening started with a flag parade of flags from all around the world, and then the traditional "welcome to country"  by Noongar elder Troy Bennell and a group of young dancers. It is good to see the indigenous traditions being passed onto the younger generations.

Following this were members of the Burundi Peace Choir, The Narthanalaya School of Indian Classical Dance and Bhangra Rulez, Ngaru Pou Maori group and a Filipino Song and Dance Group from the Bunbury Filipino community. 

We were then treated by a spectacular dragon dance by the Chung Wah Association. I have seen many dragon dances in the past but this one surpassed the others. I loved the way the background was in darkness and only the dragon was lit and the dragon performed intricate patterns across the stage. I have lightened some of the background in these images so you can see the dancers.

and Taiko Do Japanese drumming - their energy and timing was amazing!

During the afternoon there were various stalls and demonstrations. In all a fabulous cultural afternoon and evening. 

Last Saturday we had another opportunity to be immersed in culture with the Chinese New Year Festival in our city.  Unfortunately we only had a short time to browse the displays and entertainment. And we missed the dragon dance - you can see the dragon in the bottom pic.

Here is a list of lucky foods consumed during Chinese New Year

 How to say happy New Year in Chinese -from China Highlights

新年快乐 / 新年快樂 (Xīnnián kuàilè)

'New Year happiness!'

• In Mandarin: /sshin-nyen kwhy-ler/ 
• In Cantonese: /sen-nin feye-lor/

I enjoy living in a rich multi-cultural environment - especially the food and entertainment - and the opportunity to get to know people from other nationalities and learn something about their background.

 Thank you so much for stopping by. Have you been to a cultural event in your region lately. Perhaps you would like to tell us about it in your comments. 
I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

   
All Seasons
MosaicMonday at Letting Go of the Bay Leaf

Our World Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 

Image-in-ing
My corner of the world through my camera 
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global hosted by Randomosity.

The Lovin' Life Team over at: Deep Fried Fruit

Hello there! I love reading your comments. If you scroll down to the bottom you can comment too! I would love to hear from you.