Chun Jie (Chinese New Year) — A night where the sky flares with the sound of traditional firecrackers. Where lions and dragons dance to pounding drums, clanging cymbals and crackerling firecrackers. Where families unite around grand banquet feasts.

Chinese New Year is the biggest celebration on the Chinese calendar. Based on a different calendar to that used in Western cultures, the New Year of the Chinese lunar calendar usually falls in February. As rich with symbolism as with feasting and sounds of celebration, Chinese New Year rituals are said to lay the way for a New Year blessed with good luck and prosperity. The giving and receiving of gifts, symbolising happiness, wealth and long life, are a part of this tradition. As is the thorough cleaning of houses (if one sweeps on New Year’s day it is said that good luck will be swept out the door) and the removal of debt from the books of merchants. The famous lion and dragon dances are performed to scare away evil spirits, thereby making way for a happy and prosperous New Year.