Asians welcome Year of Dragon

SILENCE OF THE LANTERNS No fireworks, just hundreds of sky lanterns soaring silently into the Davao City skies on Sunday night as the local Chinese community welcomes the Chinese New Year. Davao City has banned the use of firecrackers. KARLOS MANLUPIG/INQUIRER MINDANAO

BEIJING—Asia welcomed the Year of the Dragon on Monday with a cacophony of fireworks, hoping the mightiest sign in the Chinese zodiac will usher in the wealth and power it represents.

From Malaysia to South Korea, millions of people traveled huge distances to reunite with their families for the Lunar New Year—the most important holiday of the year for many in Asia—indulging in feasts or watching dragon dances.

As the clock hit midnight, Beijing’s skyline lit up with color as families across the Chinese capital set off boxes and boxes of fireworks to ward off evil spirits in the new year—a scene repeated across the country.

Those living in the Philippines, meanwhile, were able to sleep in on Monday after the Lunar New Year became an official holiday for the first time, despite objections from some in the business community.

The celebration in the predominantly Catholic country was generally peaceful, according to Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr., spokesperson of the Philippine National Police.

“So far we have not received reports of major untoward incidents from anywhere. There were some incidents of rowdiness and quarrel among the revelers. But aside from that we have not received reports of crime incidents,” Cruz said Monday.

He said additional forces of more than 100 policemen were deployed in Manila’s Binondo district and other Chinatowns in major cities like Cebu, Davao and Baguio.

Bracing for baby boom

The dragon is the most favorable and revered sign in the 12-year Chinese zodiac—a symbol of royalty, fortune and power that is also used in other cultures that celebrate the Lunar New Year, such as in Vietnam.

As such, hospitals across China and in Chinese communities are bracing for a baby boom as couples try to have a child this year.

Nannies in Beijing and neighboring Tianjin are charging more in 2012, and the beds in the capital’s Maternity Hospital are all booked until August, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong even took advantage of the Dragon to call on the country’s residents to boost a stubbornly low birth rate, in an attempt to reduce the government’s heavy reliance on foreign workers.

“I fervently hope that this year will be a big Dragon Year for babies … This is critical to preserve a Singapore core in our society,” he said in his new year message.

But in Hong Kong, where tens of thousands of pregnant mainlanders come to give birth every year to gain residency rights for their babies, the Dragon may not prove such a boon as it could exacerbate problems such as limited beds and soaring delivery costs.

Next Chinese ‘scandal’

And according to some astrologers and geomancers, the Dragon may bring natural disasters and financial volatility to an already destabilized world.

Hong Kong feng shui master Anthony Cheng warned a “scandalous corruption case” would rock China in the second half of 2012, and also said high-ranking Chinese officials would be forced to step down, thrown behind bars or even die.

But people across Asia disregarded the doomsday predictions over the holiday, preferring to feast and celebrate with their families, and pray at temples or pagodas.

Holiday bustle

Highways in Malaysia, where 25 percent of the population is ethnic Chinese, were clogged at the weekend while the capital Kuala Lumpur became almost deserted as people traveled home.

In South Korea, which also celebrates the Lunar New Year, more than half of the entire population—or some 31 million people—took to roads, railways and planes for the holiday.

But stores in the capital Seoul —normally quiet at this time of year—bustled with activity as tens of thousands of tourists from China swamped major shopping areas to spend an expected 100 billion won ($88 million) in January.

“I feel like I’m walking on a street in China. There are so many of them,” said Park Eun-Yong, a South Korean college student. With reports from AFP and Dona Z. Pazzibugan in Manila