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Tag: CNY 2014

  • Chinese New Year’s Celebration At Newcastle’s Chinatown

    Chinese New Year’s Celebration At Newcastle’s Chinatown

    Chinese New Year’s Celebration At Newcastle’s Chinatown – Following up the Chinese New Year’s celebration in London, the Chinatown in Newcastle also had its own Chinese New Year celebration on last Sunday. The  Chinatown in Newcastle covers the stretch of Stowell Street that filled up with Chinese restaurant mostly, and a few Chinese retails and hair salons.

    Unlike London’s CNY celebration where you can find a series of performance at a main stage and a small CNY parade, the celebration at Newcastle’s Chinatown was actually just the performances of Lion Dance & Dragon Dance. Local, Geordies and students, all flocked into the street of Chinatown – Stowell Street early on Sunday morning to experience the sound of live firecrackers and ‘dong dong qiang’ of lion & dragon dances. Me and friends went at noon to join the fun and feel the Chinese New Year’s atmosphere as it was the 10th day of Chinese New Year.

    Chinatown in Newcastle has been quiet all the while, and finally, the only day of the year that it’s very happenings. Lion dance went to each restaurants and retails on the street to perform a short dance to bring luck to their business. Funny is that most of the crowds followed the lion dance team all the way from beginning to the end. There’s also a very small fun fair at the end of the street which I think that day was the most crowded day of the year. Well, the celebration was quite interesting, with lion dance, fun fair, some Chinese performance that I’ve missed it and a sea of people. This gave me a different perception of the Chinatown in Newcastle instead of being a quiet street with no Chinatown’s feeling. Anyway, the food price at all restaurants remained the same on that day, which was a very good thing!


    The crowds in front of the Chinese arch near St. James Park.


    People watching the lion dance ‘performance’.


    Live fire crackers. This just spiced up everything to make the day more festive.


    A very small merry-go-round.


    Inflatable slides that made the kids went crazy. This reminds me when I was small that loved to get on these inflatable slides!


    Some little fun CNY thingy or souvenirs or toys for the locals, not for the Asian though.


    Genting, a very familiar name for Malaysian.


    Cute little girl with a small lion head.


  • London’s Chinatown During Chinese New Year

    London’s Chinatown During Chinese New Year

    London’s Chinatown During Chinese New Year – London’s Chinatown has one of the biggest Chinese New Year celebration out of Asia, read again, it’s not the ‘the biggest’, but one of the biggest, so there’s still other great CNY celebration places like Sydney, Vancouver, NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco and more.

    Although Newcastle has a Chinatown, it’s rather quiet during normal days and during CNY too. So, I’ve travelled down to London to experience the Chinese festive season and to see how great the celebration was. The celebration venues cover the Trafalgar Square and Chinatown where the square has a main stage for performance and Chinatown is the end point for the parade. Sounds interesting?

    Unfortunately, I woke up late due to a party I had the night before and only got to Chinatown at noon! The sound of Chinese drums ‘dong dong qiang’ can be heard from far where the sign of lion dance could not be seen in any near distance. The most craziest thing was the packed crowds, where you can hardly move a bit and the worst, you can’t even see what’s ahead of the crowds. I’ve no idea where were the crowds heading to. It’s like an open-day for Chinatown, people just visit the place, for fun. Seriously, there’s not much to see in Chinatown at that time, it’s just maybe, a few Lion Dance, and that’s it. Why would people wanted to visit the Chinatown so badly during CNY but not normal days?! It’d made me so difficult to walk and look for food at that time. I wanted to have a good lunch at Chinatown, but the ended abandoning the place and head over to Covent Garden for food.

    So, Chinatown during Chinese New Year was really crowded, but honestly, it’s not as fun as I thought. Yes, there’s  the festive feeling, many people, there’s Lion Dance, and lanterns (that were not light up), but that’s it. Come at night, it would be better when the crowd dispersed, or very early in the morning, but not noon time. Now, I want to try other places’ Chinatown like NYC, SF, Sydney and Vancouver which I’ve read that it’s very happenings during Chinese New Year.

  • How I Celebrated Chinese New Year In The UK

    How I Celebrated Chinese New Year In The UK

    How I Celebrated Chinese New Year In The UK – ‘There’s no such thing as Chinese New Year here in the UK’, some said to me; but the beautiful festive just went on as usual with good food, gambling & friends, minus the receiving of Ang Bao and the reunion with family & friends back in hometown. The feeling before Chinese New Year was quite depressing, especially a few days before, when you see people posting status about heading back hometown, posting photos of CNY decorations and the preparation for this festive.

    However, the festive feeling turned on when I changed up a set of clothing, and went for a good meal with a bunch of Malaysian-friends who were in the same situation of not getting to celebrate Chinese New Year. The family back in the hometown got to eat a good meal, so do we, far away from home. The most important thing is get-together, since it’s a tradition festive, getting-together for a little bit of time is good, it’s not just just spending the whole day at work and being alone.

    I shut myself from working on assignments, I stopped thinking about budget during the past CNY weekends and had a good time eating some really good meal. There’s the first ‘reunion’ dinner at a Malaysian restaurant then a KTV session on the CNY’s eve. Then I attended a Chinese New Year dinner organised by my university’s Malaysian Society and spend the night with many Malaysian on Chor 1. The celebration shifted from Newcastle to London where I had a good steamboat and drunk night, with again friends from Malaysia, but specifically, Penang. Lastly, a visit to the super-crowded Chinatown in London on Chor 3 had gave me a strong feel of the Chinese New Year atmosphere in a foreign land. A great weekend I had, and it’s time to get back to work. Happy Chinese New Year to all!

  • These Chinese New Year Songs Will Make You Feel Festive!

    These Chinese New Year Songs Will Make You Feel Festive!

    These Chinese New Year Songs Will Make You Feel Festive! – First time of my life, I am living so far away from home, centred at the middle of the Earth – UK, cold and missing home, I don’t get to reunion and celebrate the fun Chinese New Year with my family back in Malaysia.

    Despite there’s still quite a numbers of Chinese (from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia & beyond) are residing here, yet the feeling and atmosphere is totally different. Chinatown is where the only place I can be at to feel the reunion of – overseas Chinese. That’s why I am heading to London’s Chinatown during CNY!

    I definitely don’t like the feeling of being away during Chinese New Year, it’s the only time of the year where everyone will be back. Even some times it’s just HELLO and BYE BYE, that’s still better than not seeing each other. Go home if you can, call home and if you can’t, let’s just listen to some Malaysian-made Chinese New Year songs that will ease the homesickness and I am very sure-ahhhh, these Malaysian Chinese New Year songs are so much better than the original-China’s version.






    The dragon year 16-mins medley from Astro is still the best after all!






    I think that it’s only in Malaysia-lah, that TV stations, radio stations are all ‘competing’ to release their own Chinese New Year song. I don’t really see that in Hong Kong, or Singapore, or Taiwan! Awesome right?
    Happy Chinese New Year in advance, from Newcastle.
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