Chinese Diaspora Gear Up for Spring Festival Celebrations

Spring Festival (a.k.a. Chunjie a.k.a. Chinese New Year) is almost upon us, and with it comes the same file of stories updated each year: the travel chaos of chunyun (the peak travel season), the Year of the _____ (insert Chinese zodiac animal), migrant workers traveling home, the pressures on Chinese young people to have kids or get married, and the list goes on. Instead of those recycled (yet sometimes interesting) stories, I want to look at what is happening around the world for Chinese diaspora in select countries.

Bangkok, Thailand

Let’s start in Southeast Asia. Everyone knows that countries like Singapore and Malaysia have large Chinese populations, but what about Thailand? Thai-Chinese make up around 14 percent of the country’s population and play a major role in the Thai economy—Thailand’s five richest men are all Thai-Chinese. As such, Chinese New Year is a big occasion throughout the country, and the celebrations usually do not lack for funding.

The place to be in Bangkok on Chinese New Year’s Day (as well as the days before and after) is Yaowarat Road, also known as Bangkok’s Chinatown. According to the website for Coconuts Bangkok, all the usual attractions will be out in force: dragon and lion dances, fireworks, and plenty of red. This year is the 12^th year of co-hosted celebrations by the Tourism Authority of Thailand and China’s Ministry of Culture, and the TAT expects that an estimated 476,000 tourists will visit from countries with sizeable Chinese communities. (A friend in Thailand for the holiday confirmed that Thai capital is indeed a popular vacation choice for Chinese mainlanders during the break).

Vancouver, Canada

When it comes to Chinese communities in North America, there are two cities that dwarf all others: San Francisco in the U.S. and Vancouver in Canada. According to the 2010 U.S. census, 21.4 percent of San Francisco’s population were registered as Chinese American, but this number was eclipsed in the Vancouver Metro area where it reached 29 percent. This figure then climbs to over 30 percent once Richmond (55 percent Chinese) and other such satellite cities are factored into the Greater Vancouver area.

The Chinese New Year festivities in Vancouver sound as though they will be quite the occasion. (Also, note that it is branded as Chinese New Year and not Spring Festival abroad; helps with turnout, I’m sure). According to the website for the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, one of the organizers of this year’s Chinese New Year Parade, the parade is expected to draw a crowd of more than 100,000. Again, there is lion dancing, martial arts performances and much more. This clip on CBC News tells of how oysters are a must-eat food for Chinese people over the festival, and I thought that odd as I’ve never seen oysters on the menu in Beijing. Most of the first Chinese immigrants to Canada, however, were from present day Guangdong or Fujian (the Cantonese, Hakka, Chaozhou, and Teochew peoples). As such, the word hou meaning wealth, comes from Cantonese. Nowadays, many of the immigrants to Vancouver speak Mandarin over Cantonese or any of the other southern dialects.

Paris, France

France is home to the largest population of Chinese diaspora in Europe (excluding Russia), with the U.K. second. While the percentage of Chinese in France (around 1 percent in 2010) pales in comparison to that of Canada (4.3 percent), it’s capital was once home to two of China’s most venerated statesmen in Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai.

For Chinese New Year, the celebrations kick off a little bit later than the aforementioned parades and festivities. In Paris—are the French ever on time?—the parades (three of them!) will be held at the tail end of the holiday on Feb. 13-14 in the Belleville, Marais, and Chinatown districts. The “Chinatown” district is in the 13th arrondissement (administrative district) and is home to the Quartier Asiatique. As can be seen from the name, the quarter is not exactly a “Chinatown” per se as it is also home to many Vietnamese, Lao, and Cambodian communities.

Johannesburg, South Africa/Lusaka, Zambia

I wanted to find a place a little more off the wall for the last entry in this article. Sure, it would’ve been easy to go with Sydney or Auckland (Australia and New Zealand both have around 4 percent of total population as Chinese or of Chinese ancestry) but they are basically just smaller versions of the Chinese communities in Vancouver or San Francisco. Not exactly, but close. My first choice was Paramaribo, Suriname (a surprisingly large Chinese-to-local ratio; the first Chinese came as contracted laborers for work on plantations after slavery ended) but there was little information available. Then it was Johannesburg, South Africa, but the information was pretty basic. So how about Joburg and Lusaka, Zambia?

Unfortunately, if you planned on flying thousands of miles to either city to celebrate Chinese New Year, the celebrations have already passed. The festivities were held on Jan. 27 in Lusaka and Jan. 30 in Joburg, ostensibly to “allow as many people as possible to attend” but more likely to allow Chinese people in these cities to spend time with family and not entertaining. Once again, the events involved lion and dragon dancing but also featured a level of officialdom absent in the more organic festivities held in the more established Chinese communities of developed nations.

“China and Zambia have witnessed rapid development in all areas of our bilateral relationship in recent years…our bilateral Economic relations continue to grow, especially Chinese investment continues to increase in many sectors of the Zambian economy.”

The above remarks (from a temple fair in Lusaka; more here) sum up the Chinese New Year celebrations in many African countries: government-introduced instead of community-based, with an eye on building trade and soft power assets. But hey, it’s still the celebration of a new lunar year. There do seem to be some more authentic events in Johannesburg coming up in both of the city’s Chinatowns—the Commissioner Street Chinatown is older and popular with established Chinese-South Africans while the Cyrildene neighborhood is home to the festivities for many first-generation Chinese mainland immigrants.

(Side note: What’s up with the bag pipers leading the parade for Chinese New Year?)