Bye bye CNY

Yesterday was the last day (元宵节 yuán xiāo jié / 十五暝 Chap Goh Mei) of the 15-day CNY celebration. Initially I planned to visit i-City Shah Alam at night with my family after seeing the pretty photos taken of the lights display by blogger Family First.

After I have visualized the trip in my mind, I realized that we would probably spend more time travelling in the car than admiring the lights. I also do not know whether the lights display was still on or not. There was no information about the lights display on i-City website. So I just googled for all the blog posts with photos of the lights and showed them to my family. All of us agreed that we have been able to experience the beauty of the lights through these photos so we do not need to make the actual journey there. I just have to say a big thank you to photo bloggers who enabled us to do so. Therefore, the trip was cancelled but everyone was happy to end the CNY celebration this way.

However, we are all looking forward to next year to celebrate CNY again as it is an important festival to ethnic Chinese all around the world. Although it is not a public holiday in many countries, Chinatowns around the world would still celebrate it in their own way, sharing this significant event with people from other cultures.

I was in London Chinatown during CNY 2000. There were many makeshift stalls in the street selling CNY goodies and the street was packed with people. All the Chinese restaurants were opened for business unlike here where many of the Chinese restaurants would be closed for the first two days of CNY. Chinatown was just bustling with activities. Good for Chinatowns worldwide for celebrating CNY!

1st Photo: CNY 2000 in London Chinatown

2nd Photo: A closeup of the little boy in the 1st photo. He is playing with a toy dragon as the year 2000 is the year of the dragon