LIKE Christmas in the West, the Spring Festival is the most important and spectacular traditional festival to the Chinese. People’s homesickness and hope for family reunions are the same worldwide. The Chinese are witnessing their Spring Festival going global, as a growing number of countries join in the festivities and share the new year joy in various ways.

    China will begin celebrating its Lunar New Year on Saturday and usher in the Year of the Rooster, leaving behind the Year of the Monkey. The celebration, which is also known as the Spring Festival, will last for 15 days.

    A dozen countries and foreign cities have added the Spring Festival to their list of public holidays, including New York state and California of the United States.

    In New York City, the top of the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan will shine red and gold today and tomorrow in a salute to the Chinese Lunar New Year.

    The light show ushers in a series of China-related cultural events to mark the Year of the Rooster, in which the auspicious connotation of light and hope is infused.

    An awe-inspiring Chinese New Year fireworks display will be held tonight while the New York Philharmonic Orchestra will hold its Chinese New Year Concert on Tuesday, drawing to a close the nine-day celebration.

    In Myanmar, the traditional Chinese New Year festival will be celebrated on a grand scale in Yongon’s Chinatown for the first time in several decades.

    Starting Saturday, the celebration will last for three consecutive days, the first three days of the new year.

    Various entertainment programs, including songs and dragon and lion dances, will be performed while Chinese traditional handicrafts and cultural objects will be showcased at booths.

    More than 3,000 light bulbs are being planned for installation along Maha Bandoola Street, the main street of the Chinatown. Five archways will be built with stages there.

    In Australia, the largest-ever Chinese lanterns display was held in Sydney’s Darling Harbor last week, celebrating the Year of the Rooster. Around 150,000 festival goers were met with the sight of an extraordinary five-story replica of the gate to Beijing’s Forbidden City, along with a two-story Ming Vase lantern as the centerpiece.

    Though it is not a public holiday in Cambodia, the Chinese New Year is the second-largest New Year celebration in this Southeast Asian nation after the Khmer Lunar New Year.

    Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong told Xinhua News Agency last week that the Chinese New Year has been celebrated broadly around the world.

    “In Cambodia, most Cambodian people as well as overseas Chinese celebrate the Spring Festival,” he said. “The Cambodian people mark the New Year three times a year, namely Universal New Year, Chinese New Year, and Cambodian New Year in April.”

    In Rwandan capital Kigali, a two-day event last week was held to mark this year’s Chinese Spring Festival. Various Chinese art forms, such as comic dialogues, dances, acrobatic shows, short plays, pop music performances, traditional operas and martial arts shows, as well as Urukerereza, a Rwandan dance troupe featuring traditional Rwandan songs, drum beats and dance, were performed at the event.

    Meanwhile, more than 6 million Chinese people plan to travel abroad during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, with the United States, Australia and Thailand among the most popular destinations, according to the China National Tourism Administration on Monday.

    (SD-Xinhua)