A billion-plus Asians ushered in the Year of the Snake yesterday with a cacophony of fireworks, after a Chinese televised gala featuring megastars, including Celine Dion, kicked off a week of festivities.
From Australia to South Korea, millions of people traveled huge distances to reunite with their families for Lunar New Year — the most important holiday of the year for many in Asia — indulging in feasts and celebrations.
As the clock struck midnight, Beijing’s skyline lit up with color as residents braved freezing temperatures to set off loud fireworks, traditionally believed to ward off evil spirits.
Photo: Reuters
However, this year reportedly saw a sharp reduction in the sale of fireworks as heavy smog in recent weeks has stoked fears that Beijing’s notorious air pollution levels could touch dangerous highs during the festival.
More than 260,000 boxes of fireworks were sold in the city in the days leading up to the New Year, a 37 percent drop compared to last year’s sales, after the smog left citizens “worried,” the Beijing News reported.
State broadcaster CCTV aired its annual gala variety show during the countdown to the New Year — which rakes in hundreds of millions of viewers — featuring a gamut of iconic stars, including Celine Dion, who sang in Mandarin.
Dion performed the classic Chinese folk song Jasmine Flower — in duet with Song Zuying (宋祖英), before launching into her global hit My Heart Will Go On from Titanic.
Celebrations were also reported aboard Chinese patrol ships in waters surrounding East China Sea islands known as the Senkakus in Japan, Diaoyu Archipelago (釣魚群島) in China and Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan, which are at the center of a bitter territorial row with Japan.
Sailors adorned their vessels with lanterns and snake-themed decorations to usher in the New Year, the Beijing Times said.
In China the snake has traditionally been seen as a symbol of wisdom, wealth and longevity, but is considered less auspicious than other animals in the 12-year Chinese Zodiac cycle such as the Dragon.
In Sydney, fireworks overnight announced the Lunar New Year though the city’s major event, the annual Twilight Parade featuring some 3,500 performers, is not on until next weekend.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard wished the country’s 900,000 people of Chinese ancestry a “healthy and prosperous Year of the Snake” on Twitter while ministers in her government said it was an important celebration of Australian diversity.
The New Year typically marks the largest annual movement of people as millions of people across squeeze into packed trains and buses to journey home to spend the season with their families.
Pins hidden in her shoes, head forced down a toilet, kicked in the stomach: South Korean hairdresser Pyo Ye-rim suffered a litany of abuse from school bullies, but now she is speaking out. The 26-year-old is part of a phenomenon sweeping South Korea known as “Hakpok #MeToo,” where people who were bullied publicly name and shame the perpetrators of school violence — “hakpok” in Korean — decades after the alleged crimes. Made famous globally by Netflix’s gory revenge series The Glory, the movement has ensnared everyone from K-pop stars to baseball players and accusations — often anonymous — can be career-ending, with
One of Australia’s two active volcanoes on an island near Antarctica — known as Big Ben — has been spotted by satellite spewing lava. The lava flow on the uninhabited Heard Island, about 4,100km southwest of Perth and 1,500km north of Antarctica, is part of an ongoing eruption that was first noted more than a decade ago. The image was caught by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite on Thursday, and is a composite of an optical picture and an infrared image. The lava is seen flowing down the side of Big Ben from near the summit, known as Mawson Peak.
SYMBOLIC: The bill sponsored by a cross-party group of lawmakers was hailed as a ‘historic moment’ in the fight for marriage equality, but is unlikely to pass Lawmakers in South Korea have proposed the country’s first same-sex marriage bill, in a move hailed by civic groups as a defining moment in the fight for equality. The marriage equality bill, proposed by South Korean lawmaker Jang Hye-yeong of the minor opposition Justice Party and co-sponsored by 12 lawmakers across all the main parties, seeks to amend the country’s civil code to allow same-sex marriage. The bill is unlikely to pass, but forms part of a trio of bills expected to increase pressure on the government to expand the idea of family beyond traditional criteria. The two other bills relate to
TIME TO TALK: Among China’s grievances were economic and trade issues related to Taiwan, but both countries emphasized the need to maintain communication US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) on Friday raised complaints about China’s state-led economic policies during a meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao (王文濤), who objected to US tariffs and trade policies, as well as issues related to Taiwan, their offices said. However, statements from the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce emphasized the need for Washington and Beijing to maintain communication on trade. “Ambassador Tai highlighted the need to address the critical imbalances caused by China’s state-led, non-market approach to the economy and trade policy,” the USTR said in a statement released after the
RSS