page_title: Chinese New Year
section_title: Singapore
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese New Year / Events / Singapore
caption_attribution_description: Picture of my steamboat dinner at Chinatown, Singapore
context_page_description: Chinese New Year, known in China as the Spring Festival and in Singapore as the Lunar New Year, is a holiday on and around the new moon on the first day of the year in the traditional Chinese calendar. This calendar is based on the changes in the moon and is only sometimes changed to fit the seasons of the year based on how the Earth moves around the sun. Because of this, Chinese New Year is never on January 1. It moves around between January 21 and February 20.
  The Chinese New Year is of the most important holidays for Chinese people all over the world. Its 7th day used to be used instead of birthdays to count people's ages in China. The holiday is still used to tell people which "animal" of the Chinese zodiac they are part of. The holiday is a time for gifts to children and for family gatherings with large meals, just like Christmas in Europe and in other Christian areas. Unlike Christmas, the children usually get gifts of cash in red envelopes and not toys or clothes.
  Chinese New Year used to last 15 days until the Lantern Festival on the year's first full moon.
context_section_description: Singapore, like Malaysia, has a national holiday for Chinese New Year and the day after it. It also sees lot of "steam boat" hot pot dinners. In 1972, the government stopped people from using their own fireworks during the holiday. Worried that people would find the next celebration less fun, they began the Chingay Parade the next year in 1973. In 1977, Indians and Malays joined the parade, which happens on the 8th day of the New Year. The parade is now the biggest in Asia, with more than 10,000 people in it and floats that showing every animal of the circle of Chinese years and the money god Cai Shen. More than 100,000 come to see it in person, and millions of people see it on TV. There are still government firework shows, and the people of Singapore now make noise during the holiday by hitting bamboo sticks together.
  Holiday shopping and street shows are centered on Chinatown. Its Wishing Tree is filled with cards that tell people's hopes and dreams. The money from selling the cards is used for the area's activity center for the old.
  Downtown, the holiday is used as a showcase for Chinese arts and customs. The Chinese Festival of Arts starts on the 5th day and runs for the rest of the holiday until the Lantern Festival. The National Gallery, Stamp Museum, and Asian Civilizations Museum let people in for free on some of the days of the holiday. For more than 10 years, Singapore has held a big lion dancing contest with teams coming from other countries across Southeast Asia. During the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the New Year, there is the River Hongbao show on the Marina Bay Floating Platform and along the waterfront.
caption: Singapore's "steam boats", another name for hot pot, are heated pots of soup used by everyone around a table to cook side dishes of meat, fish, vegetables, and other things
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix J150W", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix J150W Ver1.00", "Image DateTime": "2009:11:20 18:38:22", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "300", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1958", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4982", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/42", "EXIF FNumber": "37/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:11:20 18:38:22", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:11:20 18:38:22", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "134/25", "EXIF ApertureValue": "19/5", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "17/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "15/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1810", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "4355", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "4355", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}