Chinese New Year of the monkey 2016 kicks off with a bang

Zoe Zhou has been working at the Chinese Cultural Centre since coming to Canada two and a half years ago and spent the holiday celebrating with friends. Millions of Chinese began celebrating the Lunar New Year, which mark…

Chinese dancers dressed in traditional costume take selfies in backstage during a temple fair for a Lunar New Year celebration in Beijing.

The Monkey is taking over from the year of the Sheep.

In China, the tradition of fireworks is believed to bring good fortune and to scare evil spirits away from the year to come.

Unashamedly trying to capitalize on the new zodiac year, yet another Monkey King adaptation will be released on the first day of the lunar new year ” February 8. They put up red posters with poetic verses on their doors, Chinese New Year pictures on their walls, and decorate their homes with red lanterns. In 2016, the New Year falls on a Monday.

But the holiday is more than just these festive trappings: it is the longest – 15 days – and most important holiday for people of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other East Asian heritages, wherever they live in the world.

Comfort is also found around the dinner table, as extended family gathers for a feast on New Year’s Eve that traditionally includes fish as a last course, as it is considered a symbol of abundance that is not meant to be eaten, as The History Channel explains.

The CLSA brokerage says US presidential campaigner Donald Trump should watch his cash outflow and beware the “golden-tongued” Hilary Clinton, who was born in the Year of the Pig and is therefore a good pal of the monkey. Well each year is associated with a Chinese zodiac animal sign.

“These are lions. We try to mimic as good as we can how lions are, how menacing it can be and how playful it can be at the same time”, Wu said. The years 1920, 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992 and 2004 were also assigned as the Year of the Monkey.

According to Aiad-Toss, the prizes “relate to the tradition, because families often use these envelopes with different numbers inside, kind of the way we do gift exchanges for Christmas”.

The Japan Tourism Agency confirmed that Chinese tourists made up 40 percent of total consumption by foreigners in the year 2015 and spent an average of 2,393 dollars in the Japanese country.