This year, Chinese and Filipino-Chinese Community will be celebrating the coming of Chinese New Year.   It is said that the coming year is the year of the Water Dragon.  I have always seen and heard how Chinese celebrates their New Year, since some of my early years were spent with my father in the streets of Divisoria and Binondo.  Most of the traders and establishments owners are Chinese and some were my father's friends so I get a chance to somehow see some of their celebrations.


For this Chinese New Year I was very fortunate to get invited in SM North Edsa's celebration of the Chinese New Year.  They unveiled their theme for this years Chinese New Year.  Also and of course a much more up close with the dancing dragons and lions.


Chris Tiu was the emcee for that celebration and at the same time narrator of the Chinese New Year story. Aside from Chris Tiu, Richard Yap or commonly known now as Papa Chen was also their to play the role of a Chinese Emperor.  As Chris Tiu narrates part by part of the story there were Wushu Demonstration, Presentation from Chinese Symphony Orchestra, Dragon and Lion Dance, and there were other exhibits as part of the Chinese New Year Celebration.





Though I know and maybe most of the people know about how the Chinese New Year came about and why people use firecrackers during the celebration, I would still share a short brief about the story.

Just a brief, so story goes like this....


In early times in China, a certain little village was terrorize by a monster that came once each year. One day, just by luck, the villagers discovered that the monster got weaknesses and scared of color red and evenmore afraid of loud noises! So the villagers prepared for the coming of the monster. When the monster came everyone in the village ran for the red banners and noise makers they had made. They waved their banners and rattled their noise makers. This scared the monster so much that made it ran away and was never heard from again!

That's the short story about it and that's why there's always firecrackers and clanging sounds every year.  KUNG HEI FAT CHOI!

Photo courtesy of Azrael