Year
of the mighty Dragon glides into Asia
A BILLION-PLUS Asians welcomed the Year of the
Dragon on Monday with a cacophony of fireworks, hoping the mightiest sign in
the Chinese zodiac will usher in the wealth and power it represents.
From Malaysia to South Korea, millions of
people travelled huge distances to reunite with their families for Lunar New
Year — the most important holiday of the year for many in Asia — indulging in
feasts or watching dragon dances.
As the clock struck midnight, Beijing’s
skyline lit up with colour as families across the Chinese capital set off boxes
and boxes of fireworks to ward off evil spirits in the new year — a scene repeated
across the country.
Pollution levels in the city, which has come
under fire for its bad air quality, spiked in the early hours of Monday morning
as fireworks filled the skies with particulates, before falling back down
again, official data showed.
Those living in the Philippines, meanwhile,
were able to sleep in on Monday after the Lunar New Year became an official
holiday for the first time, despite objections from some in the business
community.
The dragon is the most favourable and revered
sign in the 12-year Chinese zodiac — a symbol of royalty, fortune and power
that is also used in other cultures that see in the Lunar New Year, such as in
Vietnam.
As such, hospitals across China and in Chinese
communities are bracing for a baby boom as couples try to have a child this
year.
Nannies in Beijing and neighbouring Tianjin
are charging more in 2012, and the beds in the capital’s Maternity Hospital are
all booked up until August, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
even took advantage of the Dragon to call on the country’s residents to boost a
stubbornly low birth rate, in an attempt to reduce the government’s heavy
reliance on foreign workers.
“I fervently hope that this year will be a big
Dragon Year for babies… This is critical to preserve a Singapore core in our
society,” he said in his new year message.
But in Hong Kong, where tens of thousands of
pregnant mainlanders come to give birth every year to gain residency rights for
their babies, the Dragon may not prove such a boon as it could exacerbate
problems such as limited beds and soaring delivery costs.
And according to some astrologers and
geomancers, the Dragon may bring natural disasters and financial volatility to
an already destabilised world.
Hong Kong feng shui master Anthony Cheng
warned a “scandalous corruption case” would rock China in the second half of
2012, and also said high-ranking Chinese officials would be forced to step
down, thrown behind bars or even die.
But people across Asia disregarded the
doomsday predictions over the holiday, preferring to feast and celebrate with
their families, and pray at temples or pagodas.
Highways in Malaysia, where 25 percent of the
population is ethnic Chinese, were clogged at the weekend while the capital
Kuala Lumpur became almost deserted as people travelled home.
In South Korea, which also celebrates the
Lunar New Year, more than half of the entire population — or some 31 million
people — took to roads, railways and planes for the holiday.
But stores in the capital Seoul — normally
quiet at this time of year — bustled with activity as tens of thousands of
tourists from China swamped major shopping areas to spend an expected 100
billion won ($88 million) in January.
“I feel like I’m walking on the street in
China. There are so many of them,” Park Eun-Yong, a South Korean college
student, told AFP.
Chinese tourists also flocked to Tokyo, where
interpreters in Mitsukoshi — one of Japan’s most prestigious department stores
— were on hand to help with purchases and announcements were made in Mandarin.
AFP
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