Chinese New Year (CNY) has become a big event in Sydney. Despite Australia traditionally being a Western country, high levels of migration from Asia has meant that there’s plenty of people eager to share their cultural events here, and CNY is perhaps the best example of that in Sydney.
Who
Most of the Asian population in Sydney is ethnically Chinese, but there are also significant Vietnamese and Korean population centres. For this reason, it’s common to see the term ‘Lunar New Year’ used instead of ‘CNY’ to be more inclusive.
Where
Major events are held in the areas of the city with high Asian populations. This mainly includes:
- The city centre/CBD (this includes Chinatown),
- Ashfield in the inner west,
- Cabramatta in the west (primarily Vietnamese here),
- Chatswood in the north,
- Eastwood in the north west, and
- Hurstville in the south.
What
I’ll mainly focus on the CBD/city centre (because it’s the largest) and one suburban location: Eastwood (the one I’m most familiar with).
The city centre
Web site: sydneychinesenewyear.com
The city of Sydney’s Chinese New Year celebration is enormous. Now the largest CNY celebration outside of Asia, there is a multitude of events on, most of them different every year. The following video shows some highlights from the 2016 celebration:
I made a big effort this year to try and catch as many events as I could. Below are some highlights.
The zodiac animal lanterns
Large lanterns representing all twelve of the Chinese zodiac animals were set up in various places around the CBD and it was fun walking around and tracking them all down. The City of Sydney council even added a special culture walk in their Sydney Culture Walks app for this to show you where to go.
The various displays were at many different iconic and picturesque parts of the city, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge (dragon), Opera House (monkeys), and Chinatown (goat, dog, snake).
The Chinese Garden of Friendship
Located near Darling Harbour, the Chinese Garden of Friendship is available all year round but hosts special events during CNY. In 2016 they hosted numerous things including:
- traditional tea ceremonies,
- a traditional Chinese music concert,
- a lion dance,
- story telling for children (“monkey tales”),
- pénjǐng (bonsai) displays,
- tofu carving,
- lantern decorating, and
- tai chi classes.
I only managed to get to the music concert (“Chinese Chamber Garden Music”) but it was absolutely excellent. The gardens are really beautiful and it’s a great place to rest and relax.
More
Every CNY the City of Sydney promotes the hashtag #cnysyd so you can always catch good photos on Instagram using that tag.
Due to some new construction in the city, the usual CNY twilight parade was not able to be held. You can watch highlights from the parade in previous years.
Eastwood
Web site: Eastwood Lunar New Year Celebration on Facebook
Eastwood has a large Chinese and Korean population, so there are quite a few events on around CNY. The main event is usually held on a Saturday about two weeks from the actual new year day. It consists of things like:
- dragon & lion dances (with eye-dotting ceremonies with guests of honour),
- Monkey King & god of wealth (财神) appearances,
- various Chinese & western musical items,
- martial arts demonstrations, and
- various traditional and modern dance performances.
Other events held on previous weeks included cooking competitions and art & calligraphy classes and markets.
Video
Here’s a video summary of the 2015 CNY:
Photos
Here’s a few choice photos from 2016’s main event (courtesy of the Eastwood Lunar New Year Celebration page on Facebook):
Summary
This is just a small sampling of what’s on offer in Sydney during Chinese New Year. If you’re a local who hasn’t been before or if you’re visiting around this time of year, be sure to check out some of these yearly events!