5 Top Sites to Celebrate Chinese New Year

published on February 2, 2011 by

The global news agency Reuters announced its top 10 pick for the best sites to celebrate Chinese New Year, February 3, 2010. For a great reason to take a family timeshare rental or timeshare exchange vacation in the middle of winter, you can’t beat these “hot firecracker” destinations for the best Chinese New Year parties, as described by Reuters Digital in their online magazine published January 31, 2011:

  1. New York. Manhattan’s Chinatown, found on the Lower East Side, has been a major center of the city’s Chinese community for more than a century, with records of new arrivals setting up shop as early as the mid-19th century. In fact, the neighborhood is known as one of the oldest ethnic Chinese enclaves outside the continent of Asia and such is its significance that the area encompassing it and bordering Little Italy has been designated a historic district on the USA’s National Register of Historic Places.
  2. San Francisco. Claimed to be the largest of its kind outside Asia and the oldest in North America, San Francisco’s Chinatown is perhaps the most famous in the United States. The city was the main entry-point for Chinese who had crossed the Pacific to the USA during the mid-19th century. Between the more tourist-oriented Grant Avenue, where the signature red gate is found, and the ostensibly more authentic Stockton Street, this historic area is a local treasure, attracting more visitors per year than the Golden Gate Bridge.
  3. Honolulu. Honolulu’s Chinatown can be traced back to two ships that docked here in the 1780s. Today, Chinatown is one of the must-sees on the island of Oahu – great restaurants and food stalls, markets with fresh, local produce and lots and lots of local color. The historic area with restored buildings transports visitors back to the bustling late-19th century.
  4. Melbourne. In 1851 Chinese prospectors flocked to the State of Victoria, drawn by the lure of gold. Melbourne’s Chinatown extends along Little Bourke Street between Swanston Street and Spring Street and is known by a couple of superlatives – the oldest Chinatown in Australia and the longest continuous Chinese settlement in the western world. The lodging houses for miners are long gone, replaced by restaurants (much visited by local university students and workers), shops and the Chinese Museum, which tells the stories of Australians of Chinese descent.
  5. London. Although it may not be as large or as long-established as others, having only become a center for the Chinese community during the post-war decades, London’s Chinatown is a perfectly formed little enclave that knows how to see in the year with a bang. Customarily festooned with red lanterns, you’ll see parades with lion and dragon dances through its streets and onward into the rest of the West End as well as acrobatics, martial arts, dance and opera displays nearby.

Other destinations to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit that made Reuter’s list include Toronto, Vancouver, and Bangkok.

(Source referenced from ReutersDigital.com. Image credit – chinatownhi.com)