With highlights that include a parade, firework display and a dazzling lantern festival, Hong Kong's Chinese New Year celebrations are among the most extravagant in the world
A dazzling firework display over Victoria harbour in Hong Kong to celebrate Chinese New Year. The festivities last for 15 days and includes parades of lavishly decorated floats, marching bands, jugglers and acrobatic performers
A trip to Hong Kong is a vibrant experience at any time of year, but visit during Chinese New Year and you will be in for a visual and sensory treat. A time when families gather for a reunion feast, Chinese New Year is steeped in ancient tradition and ritual. It falls on a different day each year according to the lunar calendar, and is associated with one of 12 animals that appear in the Chinese zodiac. The year of the dragon, deemed to be the most auspicious animal in the calendar, starts on 23 January 2012.
The Chinese New Year is a time for family and for securing good fortune.
Families gather together in Lam Tsuen to make their wishes at the home of the famous Wishing Trees. Flowers and plants are seen as significant for good fortune. Kumquat trees, pussy willow and narcissi bring good luck, peach blossom adds sparkle to romance and tangerines are said to ensure a happy marriage. The fragrant annual all-night flower market in Victoria Park in Causeway Bay reaches its climax at midnight on New Year's Eve when huge crowds turn out to do their last-minute shopping.
Traditionally, in the days leading up to Chinese New Year, homes will be cleaned and a New Year's Eve feast will be prepared: fish or chicken – with noodles which represent a long life. "Lai see" (red envelopes) containing lucky money are given by elders to children and unmarried couples. As midnight approaches, some families head to the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon, where they race through the doors to be the first to plant incense for prosperity in the coming year. Rather like Trafalgar Square in London or Times Square in New York, the temple is the place to be in Hong Kong at midnight. Everywhere you will hear the phrase "kung hei fat choi", which translates as "may you prosper in the New Year".
The first day of the Chinese New Year is marked with an international night parade of lavishly decorated floats, marching bands, jugglers and acrobatic performers snaking their way in a sea of lucky red and orange around Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon. It is a magical sight.
Over the next few days, the celebrations continue with a dazzling firework display over Victoria harbour, along with other events like a special Symphony of Lights (the nightly light show involving 40 buildings around the harbour), street parties, stage performances and horseracing at Sha Tin in the New Territories.
The festivities culminate on the 15th day with the Yuen Siu lantern festival. Paintings symbolising blessing, prosperity and longevity are drawn on elaborate brightly coloured paper lanterns and hung in parks, temples and ancestral halls – a fitting end to a spectacular festival.
;b? � r u � 4 8�3 >Through Facebook connections with some of his metal working friends, he learned about the Norway memorial and was asked to contribute steel flowers by Dec. 31."I did a couple on my own for it, but then I realized, 'I have a metals class.' I proposed the idea to them and the students showed a lot of interest," Biggin said.
Now, it's a class project in his two advanced metals courses for students to contribute at least one rose toward the memorial. The goal will be at least 60 completed roses, one per student, by Dec. 31, when they will be airmailed to Norway.
Biggin said he's also opened the project up to the rest of the school so students not enrolled in his classes can also participate.
"Ideally, I'd like to see 200 roses," Biggin said.
He added that he plans to make two or three roses on his own every day and hold two or three open lab nights a week to bring in students after school, After years of practice, he can turn out a rose in about 45 minutes.
On an early Friday evening, three students — junior Denzel Jensen and sophomores Scott Ekman and Nico Bahaveolos — were in Biggin's metal shop at Delavan-Darien, heating small metal with acetylene torches and hammering them into the shape of flower petals.
Each rose is made from two or three squares of steel centered on a steel rod that acts as the stem. Students heat the metal squares until soft and then cleverly hammer, turn and bend them into petals.
The stems are randomly bent to look like real rose stems. There are no thorns, but no one would want to get smacked in the face by one of these flowers, either.
Biggin said the project is larger than just a metal shop project.
"My main goal wasn't to just have them learn metal fabrication with this," Biggin said. "My initial objective is to have students develop a world perspective and pay attention to that later in life.
"Some students didn't know what happened in Norway this summer, but everyone thought it was pretty cool that we'll be doing flowers for this sculpture. It's a way to connect what's happening in different country to their lives."
When the roses are done, they will each bear the individual markings and techniques of the individual students.
But there will be no identifying marks. The metal roses will be as individual and as anonymous as the real things.
Then, in March or April, construction of the monument will begin
Biggin said his Norwegian associates have asked him to help in building the memorial.
If in March, Biggin said he'll use spring break to help with the memorial. If work delays into April, Biggin said he'll ask for four days off from school to work on the memorial. While there he'll use e-mail and cell phone connections to transmit photos, video and written descriptions of the work.
When it is completed, students in Delavan-Darien will have the satisfaction of knowing that their handiwork is part of a memorial that will bring solace to people living nearly a half world away.
"I'm quite glad that everyone is enjoying what the students will be doing for the people of Norway," said Biggin. "It's a great cause and a easy way for them to show a people of another country that their sadness and pain is regretted and felt by others that were not affected by the attacks," he said. "After all, what is more purposeful and endearing than to show someone suffering a loss the compassion of friendship and understanding."
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If in March, Biggin said he'll use spring break to help with the memorial. If work delays into April, Biggin said he'll ask for four days off from school to work on the memorial. While there he'll use e-mail and cell phone connections to transmit photos, video and written descriptions of the work.
When it is completed, students in Delavan-Darien will have the satisfaction of knowing that their handiwork is part of a memorial that will bring solace to people living nearly a half world away.
"I'm quite glad that everyone is enjoying what the students will be doing for the people of Norway," said Biggin. "It's a great cause and a easy way for them to show a people of another country that their sadness and pain is regretted and felt by others that were not affected by the attacks," he said. "After all, what is more purposeful and endearing than to show someone suffering a loss the compassion of friendship and understanding."
