Winter Garden Magazine February 2016 - Justin & Holli Trisler | Page 48

The Year of the Monkey Lunar New Year is the most celebrated holiday in East Asia. Although Chinese New Year is not an official holiday in Western countries, many of the Asian organizations in America hold large celebrations and parades to share its spring festivity. Cities like Sydney, London, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have held many successful Lunar New Year Parades that attract thousands of crowds each year. The official date of this year’s Chinese/Vietnamese Lunar New Year is Monday, February 8th (which changes each year because it follows the cycles of the moon) – but the celebrations begin much earlier and last almost all month. This is the year of the Monkey and those people born in the year of the Monkey are said to be “smart, clever and intelligent, especially in their c \