There’s still a little more than a week to go before the Year of the Monkey, but Calgary’s Chinese community isn’t waiting to get the new year celebrations underway.
Year of the Monkey
Opening ceremonies of the 2016 Year of the Monkey Chinese New Year Carnival at the Chinese Cultural Centre in Calgary
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The Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre kicked off its festivities this weekend with an indoor bazaar and traditional lion dance ceremony at its building in Chinatown.
The Centre’s new year celebrations will span four weekends, a departure from the usual two-weekend event. Chow said the change was made both to expand the celebrations and to allow people more opportunities to participate.
“in the past, we just celebrated this event over two weekends, but the place was packed,” said Malcolm Chow, president of the cultural centre.
“So we wanted to spread things out a little bit.”
Next Sunday, the day before the new year, the Centre will host a dragon show, the highlight of the festival.
Market Collective will take over the Centre February 13, and the celebration will wrap up February 20 and 21 with a lantern display.
“The main idea is that we want to have something going so they come back every weekend and see something different,” said Chow, who was pleased with the turnout on Saturday.
New year celebrations hold significant cultural importance to the Chinese community, and the festival is one of the ways the centre tries to share that culture with all Calgarians.
“It’s the biggest event in the year for all Chinese,” said Chow. He admitted that the market may not be as big as those in China, but that it is an important feature nonetheless.
“The bottom line is that this is a tradition, to out to a market and buy something and get ready for the new year.”
tslambert@postmedia.com