Malaysia held a grand national gala in Pinang on Saturday to
celebrate the Chinese New Year.
Malaysian Supreme Head Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin and Prime Minister
Abdullah Badawi as well as some 70,000 people from all parts of the
country gathered here for the grand celebration co-organized by the
Malaysian Cultural, Art and Heritage Ministry, the Pinang State
Government and local Chinese Malaysian communities.
The celebration mainly unrolled along the streets of Cannon,
AhQuee, Archeen, and Armenian, which are called the Pinang Heritage
Area in downtown Pinang City, capital of Malaysia's northern state
of Pinang. Thousands of local artists performed various Chinese
traditional dances, music, martial arts, including dragon and
liondances, traditional welcoming dances, stilting, cultural
hip-hop dances.
Chinese traditional songs could be heard there, variety shows
like single wheel cycle performance, traditional Chinese custom
wedding apparatus demonstration could be seen there, and activities
like Chinese chess playing, on-spot calligraphy writing, and
traditional Chinese fashion show as well as the art of appreciating
Chinese tea could be witnessed there.
In "Canton village," "Teow Chew village," "Fujian village" and
"Hai Nan village" there, visitors could enjoy various tasty
traditional Chinese cuisine.
The celebration organizers told Xinhua that this is the second
time for Pinang to have hosted such a national celebration to mark
the arrival of Chinese New Year in Malaysia, a country with
multi-cultures.
The celebration of Chinese New Year not only keeps the Chinese
culture in the country, but also helps build harmony among the
different cultures in the country, they said.
(Xinhua News Agency February 5, 2006)
