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Feature: Lunar New Year celebrations in Panama City bring festivity to Chinese community

Xinhua, February 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations got underway at the Chinatown of Panama's capital city on Monday, bringing festivity to the local Chinese community in anticipation of greater business development in the year of Monkey.

Lion dancing amid a flourish of gongs and drums, members from Panama's Chinese Fayen Society made their way through crowds, stopping and dancing at the entrance of each shop to wish them fortune and prosperity in 2016.

A parade with lion dancing was accompanied by natives and Panamanians with Chinese ancestry both dressed in red shirts, and was greeted with deafening firecrackers lighted by shopowners.

Tourists and passers-by were easily attracted by the jubilation and stopped to watch, film and take photos.

David Yao, the director of the lion dance, told Xinhua that since 1960, the lion dance parade has been held in Panama City annually on a Monday during the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The parade will continue throughout the week in various parts of the city where other businesses belonging to the Chinese community are located, according to Yao.

To add to the festive atmosphere, Panama City has introduced this year two famous shows from China -- "The Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva" and "My Dream", which present various styles of Chinese dancing and singing amid dazzling stage effect.

The shows are supported by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the China-Panama Trade Development Office and Panama's General Foundation of Chinese Entrepreneurs, among other local organizations and entities. More than 50 artists from China participate in the on-going shows.

Meanwhile, there will also be acrobatics and martial arts performances, magic shows, tea-tasting and Chinese calligraphy classes going on in the city to display Chinese culture to more Panamanians.

Around 300,000 people of Chinese origin are currently living in Panama, which has a total population of more than 3.5 million. The earliest batch of Chinese arrived here over 150 years ago. Endi