The notion that Lunar New Year is a Chinese-only affair is being firmly dispelled this year as festivities unfold in countries across Asia and beyond.
The Chinese diaspora in southeast Asia and elsewhere is welcoming the Year of the Dog with firecrackers and lion dances while Vietnam and South Korea mark the turn of the year with their own culturally distinct and age-old traditions.
In Taiwan, the New Year unfolds in traditional Chinese style with banquets, family reunions, games of mahjong as well as shopping and travel.
The climax is the colorful Lantern Festival, which falls on the 15th-day of the Lunar New Year period, with lantern exhibitions and fireworks in many parts of the island.
In South Korea, the festival centers on family reunions, food and placating the ancestors.
Lunar New Year fell yesterday and some 30 million people took to the road on a traffic-snarled weekend to visit their hometowns and to sweep the family grave, according to the South Korean government.
Families set up altars in their homes weighed down with food and drink for several generations of departed family members.
"It is a duty to past generations and a family tradition," said 56-year-old Seoul businessman Kim Dong-su.
In Vietnam, Lunar New Year, or Tet, is also time for family piety and feeding hungry ghosts.
Altars to ancestors are loaded with traditional dishes as well as at least five different fruits and candy. People also celebrate by visiting their relatives and cannot leave without eating or drinking as that would be considered bad luck.
Tet is also the time of gift-giving and some gifts destined for government officials reportedly are worth tens of thousands of dollars, prompting the government to issue warnings against bribery.
About 14 percent of Thailand's 64 million people are ethnic Chinese, but Lunar New Year traditions have spread beyond their community.
Now many ethnic Thais enthusiastically join in the celebrations that will focus on Bangkok's Chinatown, where the main street will close to traffic for a festival.
People mark the holiday by giving oranges -- symbols of wealth -- and gift money in traditional red envelopes. Gold is also a popular gift.
On the eve of Lunar New Year, Chinese families prepare a feast of chicken, duck, pork and fish, along with sweets and fruit, and offer it to their ancestors, deceased relatives and other spirits.
In Malaysia, ethnic Chinese put the finishing touches to spring cleaning before preparing lavish meals or booking restaurants for family banquets.
"We clean our house before Chinese New Year. You know for the New Year, everything should be clean," said writer Hood Yet Ying, 27, whose family is gathering in Malaysia's central Pahang state.
Malls in the capital Kuala Lumpur are packed with shoppers, and market stalls do a brisk trade in traditional New Year fare.
Enterprising retailers are also selling New Year-themed products, often colored red and gold. Red underwear and socks with gold trimming which deliver the traditional New Year message, "Wishing you prosperity," are a hit, especially with the younger generations.
"We have a lot of these customers who want to inject the red color into festivities," said Ashleye Yip, the manager of the Under Store in Kuala Lumpur, which sells the clothing.
"It's for the fun of it as well. It's so auspicious to have it," she said.
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