A fire-eater performs during celebrations of the Lunar New Year in the Chinatown district of Manila, Philippines on Tuesday. This year is the Year of the Earth Pig in the Chinese Lunar calendar and is supposed to represent abundance, diligence and generosity. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

A fire-eater performs during celebrations of the Lunar New Year in the Chinatown district of Manila, Philippines on Tuesday. This year is the Year of the Earth Pig in the Chinese Lunar calendar and is supposed to represent abundance, diligence and generosity. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Lunar New Year marked with celebration, ceremony

Images of cute swine abound as this year marks the year of the pig.

  • By The Associated Press
  • Tuesday, February 5, 2019 7:37am
  • Nation-World

Associated Press

From the dragon dancers parading through Yangon to the fire-eaters entertaining crowds in Manila, millions of people across Asia are ringing in the Lunar New Year.

The Lunar New Year is celebrated across the continent, from Vietnam, where it is known as Tet, to South Korea, where it is called Seollal. Celebrants take part in religious rituals, community events and family reunions.

People flock to temples to light incense sticks to pray for good fortune and health. Everywhere, the color red dominates — on lanterns, clothing and signs.

At a temple in China, performers dress in elaborate costumes from the Qing Dynasty.

In North Korea’s capital, crowds celebrate by bowing and placing flowers before statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

Images of cute swine abound as this year marks the year of the pig, one of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac’s rotating cycle.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

Gallery
Crowds jostle to grab festive items being thrown at them during celebrations of the Lunar New Year in the Chinatown district in Manila, Philippines on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
A North Korean refugee woman prays for her ancestors in North Korea as she visits the border to celebrate the Lunar New Year at the Imjingak Pavilion, near the demilitarized zone of Panmunjom, in Paju, South Korea, on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Dragon dance performers snake through the crowd during the celebrations of the Lunar New Year in the Chinatown district of Manila, Philippines on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
Ethnic Chinese Thai devotees burn incense sticks and pray at a temple in Bangkok, Thailand on Tuesday. In Bangkok where dusty smog has clogged the city’s air in recent weeks, most ignored government recommendations to burn less and went ahead with their Lunar New Year celebrations by lighting incense sticks and paper offerings for their ancestors. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
Dancers perform traditional lion and dragon dances in celebration of the Lunar New Year in the Chinatown district in Manila, Philippines on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Crowds jostle to grab festive items being thrown at them during celebrations of the Lunar New Year in the Chinatown district in Manila, Philippines on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

A North Korean refugee woman prays for her ancestors in North Korea as she visits the border to celebrate the Lunar New Year at the Imjingak Pavilion, near the demilitarized zone of Panmunjom, in Paju, South Korea, on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Dragon dance performers snake through the crowd during the celebrations of the Lunar New Year in the Chinatown district of Manila, Philippines on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Ethnic Chinese Thai devotees burn incense sticks and pray at a temple in Bangkok, Thailand on Tuesday. In Bangkok where dusty smog has clogged the city’s air in recent weeks, most ignored government recommendations to burn less and went ahead with their Lunar New Year celebrations by lighting incense sticks and paper offerings for their ancestors. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

Dancers perform traditional lion and dragon dances in celebration of the Lunar New Year in the Chinatown district in Manila, Philippines on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

More in Nation-World

FILE - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II looks on during a visit to officially open the new building at Thames Hospice, Maidenhead, England July 15, 2022. Buckingham Palace says Queen Elizabeth II is under medical supervision as doctors are “concerned for Her Majesty’s health.” The announcement comes a day after the 96-year-old monarch canceled a meeting of her Privy Council and was told to rest. (Kirsty O'Connor/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Queen Elizabeth II dead at 96 after 70 years on the throne

Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century died Thursday.

A woman reacts as she prepares to leave an area for relatives of the passengers aboard China Eastern's flight MU5735 at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Tuesday, March 22, 2022, in Guangzhou. No survivors have been found as rescuers on Tuesday searched the scattered wreckage of a China Eastern plane carrying 132 people that crashed a day earlier on a wooded mountainside in China's worst air disaster in more than a decade. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
No survivors found in crash of Boeing 737 in China

What caused the plane to drop out of the sky shortly before it was to being its descent remained a mystery.

In this photo taken by mobile phone released by Xinhua News Agency, a piece of wreckage of the China Eastern's flight MU5735 are seen after it crashed on the mountain in Tengxian County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Monday, March 21, 2022. A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in a remote mountainous area of southern China on Monday, officials said, setting off a forest fire visible from space in the country's worst air disaster in nearly a decade. (Xinhua via AP)
Boeing 737 crashes in southern China with 132 aboard

More than 15 hours after communication was lost with the plane, there was still no word of survivors.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., center, arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. with Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, right, the vice president-elect, on Wednesday morning. Gaetz withdrew from consideration Thursday, saying he was an unfair distraction to the transition. (Haiyun Jiang / The New York Times)
Matt Gaetz withdraws from consideration as attorney general

“It is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction,” Gaetz wrote Thursday on X.

Attendees react after Fox News called the presidential race for Former President Donald Trump, during an election night event at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday. Trump made gains in every corner of the country and with nearly every demographic group. (Haiyun Jiang / The New York Times)
Donald Trump returns to power, ushering in new era of uncertainty

Despite criminal convictions and fears of authoritarianism, Trump rode frustrations over the economy and immigration.

Voters cast their ballots at a polling place inside the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5 2024. Voters headed into polling stations on Tuesday in the closing hours of a presidential contest that both major parties said would take the country in dramatically different directions, capping a contentious and exhausting 107-day sprint that began when President Joe Biden abandoned his bid for a second term. (Caroline Yang/The New York Times)
Live updates: Georgia called for Trump

The Daily Herald will be providing live updates on national election developments throughout Tuesday.

Liam Payne performs during the Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden in New York in 2017. Payne, who rose to fame as a singer and songwriter for the British group One Direction, one of the best-selling boy bands of all time, died after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. He was 31. (Chad Batka / The New York Times)
Liam Payne, 31, former One Direction singer, dies in fall in Argentina

Payne rose to fame as a member of one of the bestselling boy bands of all time before embarking upon a solo career.

In this photo taken from video provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the nation in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. Street fighting broke out in Ukraine's second-largest city Sunday and Russian troops put increasing pressure on strategic ports in the country's south following a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities elsewhere that appeared to mark a new phase of Russia's invasion. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Ukraine wants EU membership, but accession often takes years

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s request has enthusiastic support from several member states.

FILE - Ukrainian servicemen walk by fragments of a downed aircraft, in in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. The International Criminal Court's prosecutor has put combatants and their commanders on notice that he is monitoring Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity. But, at the same time, Prosecutor Karim Khan acknowledges that he cannot investigate the crime of aggression. (AP Photo/Oleksandr Ratushniak, File)
ICC prosecutor to open probe into war crimes in Ukraine

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet confirmed that 102 civilians have been killed.

FILE - Refugees fleeing conflict from neighboring Ukraine arrive to Zahony, Hungary, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. As hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians seek refuge in neighboring countries, cradling children in one arm and clutching belongings in the other, leaders in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania are offering a hearty welcome. (AP Photo/Anna Szilagyi, File)
Europe welcomes Ukrainian refugees — others, less so

It is a stark difference from treatment given to migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa.

Afghan evacuees disembark the plane and board a bus after landing at Skopje International Airport, North Macedonia, on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. North Macedonia has hosted another group of 44 Afghan evacuees on Wednesday where they will be sheltered temporarily till their transfer to final destinations. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)
‘They are safe here.’ Snohomish County welcomes hundreds of Afghans

The county’s welcoming center has been a hub of services and assistance for migrants fleeing Afghanistan since October.

FILE - In this April 15, 2019, file photo, a vendor makes change for a marijuana customer at a cannabis marketplace in Los Angeles. An unwelcome trend is emerging in California, as the nation's most populous state enters its fifth year of broad legal marijuana sales. Industry experts say a growing number of license holders are secretly operating in the illegal market — working both sides of the economy to make ends meet. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)
In California pot market, a hazy line between legal and not

Industry insiders say the practice of working simultaneously in the legal and illicit markets is a financial reality.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.