Community to usher in Year of the Goat
While the city streets are expected to be packed with revellers today for the annual Perth Chinese New Year Fair, Broome's Chinese community will mark the occasion more intimately at home around the dinner table.
Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festival for Chinese people.
It starts on the eve of the new year when families gather for an annual reunion dinner to mark the passing year with relatives.
This year marks the Year of the Goat. Broome resident Kevin Tong said he and his family celebrated privately.
"To me and my family, it's just another year that's gone past," he said.
"We celebrate and have a family dinner."
Given the town's small Chinese community, Mr Tong said it was not possible to organise public celebrations in town.
"There's a small population in Broome, and I think a few of the Chinese all have their own businesses so they're already occupied with their work," he said.
Mr Tong said observers would traditionally enjoy a banquet on Chinese New Year's Eve, with food symbolic of happiness, prosperity, luck, fertility and a long life, and then stick to vegetarian food on New Year's Day.
He said it was customary for elders and married couples to hand out red packets containing money to children and single adults.
"It's just a Chinese tradition and wishing them good luck and a prosperous and healthy new year," he said.
Festivities held during Chinese New Year events include lion and dragon dances, parades and festival markets.
