Celebrate Lunar New Year in BC

Where to Celebrate Chinese / Lunar New Year in BC Public Libraries

Chinese New Year will fall on Friday, February 16. This festival is celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. Festivities usually start the day before the New Year, and continue until the Lantern Festival, the 15^th day of the new year.

The evening preceding Lunar New Year’s Day is an occasion for families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean their homes to sweep away ill-fortune and make way for incoming good luck. Windows and doors are decorated with red paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of good fortune, happiness, wealth, and longevity. Activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes. It is one of the world’s most prominent and celebrated festivals.

This is the year of the Dog. The Year of the Dog is associated with the Earthly Branch symbol 戌.

The Chinese believe that Earth is associated with patience, thoughtfulness, practicality, hard work, and stability. The earth element is nurturing and seeks to draw all things together with itself, in order to bring harmony, rootedness and stability. Other attributes of the earth element include ambition, stubbornness, responsibility and long-term planning.

If you’ve not participated in a Chinese / Lunar New Year Celebration, it really is a must. There are a number of free events happening at your BC Public Libraries.

• Surrey Libraries (Guilford Library) will host a Lunar New Year Celebration, Saturday, February 3^rd. This free, fun family event will have cultural performances, fortune wheel, face painting, storytimes, crafts and more. This event is presented in partnership with the Tzu Chi Foundation and S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
• The Burnaby Public Library is offering a Lunar New Year Lantern Making event. Make a lucky lantern to ring in Lunar New Year! Red lanterns traditionally represent good luck and prosperity and hanging paper lanterns is a fun and easy way to decorate your home.
• The Fraser Valley Regional Library (Murial Arnason Library) invites you to celebrate the Lunar New Year, Saturday, February 18^th. Make a canine craft and a lucky envelope, enjoy some New Year’s foods and watch Chinese dance. This is a free, drop-in program. All supplies are provided.
• The West Vancouver Memorial Library invites you to their Lunar New Year Costumes and Crafts event on Saturday, February 17^th. Celebrate the Lunar New Year by trying on traditional Chinese costumes and making crafts. Online registration opens Thursday, February 1 at 10 a.m.
• The Coquitlam Public Library has members from the Arts Musical Studio performing traditional Chinese music to welcome the arrival of spring and the Year of the Dog on Thursday, March 8^th. Seats are limited for this free program, and registration is required.