Chinese New Year: A Season for Love

Mention Chinese New Year, and family gatherings or the exchange of auspicious greetings with relatives and friends immediately come to mind. What does it have to do with romantic love?

Presented by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), the annual Lunar New Year Lantern Carnival will be held in Feb 2024 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza. To begin with, a traditional Chinese lantern set provided by the LCSD’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Office (ICHO) will be unveiled on 2 Feb followed by the Carnival itself from 20 – 25 Feb featuring a vast range of additional lanterns and celebratory activities. Of note, 24 Feb is the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese calendar, when the Chinese people go out to celebrate the Lantern Festival (or Shangyuan Festival, also known as Chinese Valentine’s Day).

In ancient China, the lantern was closely associated with romance. Young ladies, especially those from rich families, were secluded in their own chambers most of the time. That was the exact backdrop for Chinese literary classic The Peony Pavilion, in which the heroine Du Liniang, after her first and forbidden sojourn in the back garden of her house, fell desperately in love with a man in her dream. Back in the day, the Lantern Festival was among the handful of occasions when ladies were allowed out. This was also the time when young men and women were able to meet each other, and thus the chance for romance to blossom.

Located on the Victoria Harbour promenade, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza is one of the venues for this year’s Lunar New Year Lantern Carnival. The world-famous harbour view makes it the perfect place for both locals and tourists to share the festive joy. The largest attraction, without doubt, is the lantern display. Over the decades, the highly refined paper crafting techniques have been well preserved as an intangible cultural heritage item of Hong Kong. The lantern-making process is an elaborate one with mainly four steps – crafting the frame with bamboo strips, mounting paper, painting decorative patterns or calligraphic ornaments, and attaching accessories. It takes long years of painstaking training before one can manage the craft. This year with the support again from the ICHO, visitors from home and abroad will be able to deepen their understanding of the artistic and historic values of this exquisite craft.

To make sure festival-goers of all ages feel fully entertained, Youth Night on 23 Feb will feature young artists and youth community organisations take the stage to hone their skills in many different art forms; Gala Night on 24 Feb will stage performances by Mainland Chinese art groups. These examples serve well to conclude this piece: Hong Kong is indeed an East-meets-West cultural hub where creativity knows no bounds!

Lunar New Year Lantern Carnivals

1)         Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza

• 2 – 25 Feb 2024: Lantern displays
• 20 – 25 Feb 2024: Lantern displays & stage performances

2)        Hong Kong Velodrome Park, Tin Shui Wai Park & Ginza Plaza

• 20 – 25 Feb 2024: Lantern displays & stage performances

Chinese New Year snacks become adorable when turned into lanterns

Lantern making has been recognised as part of Hong Kong’s intangible cultural heritage

Local hip-hop dancers showing their mettle on the “Youth Night”

Mainland Chinese artists performing ethnic dance on the “Gala Night”