Lunar New Year prayers and festivities usher in the Year of the Horse

A worshiper wears a horse head decoration at Wong Tai Sin Temple to welcome the Lunar New Year of the Horse in Hong Kong (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

People are marking the Lunar New Year today (Tuesday) with prayers, fireworks and festivities.
The activities ushered in the Year of the Horse, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, succeeding the Year of the Snake.
The Lunar New Year is the most important annual holiday in China and some other East Asian nations and is celebrated outside the region, too.

Crowds, parades and fireworks in Macau

The city has unveiled an extensive Chinese New Year programme, headlined by two large-scale float parades on February 19 and February 28 in the Sai Van Lake area and the northern district. Around 1,300 performers from Macau, mainland China and overseas will take part, with 17 themed floats forming the centrepiece of the celebrations.

For the first time, selected evening shows overlooking Macau Tower combine fireworks with synchronised drone displays – a deliberate upgrade aimed at sharpening the city’s holiday spectacle and stretching visitor dwell time after dark.

The Lunar New Year break remains one of Macau’s most commercially significant periods, particularly for tourism and gaming. With arrivals already approaching 280,000 in the opening days, the city is tracking toward another robust Golden Week. The Macao Government Tourism Office forecasts roughly 1.5 million visitors for the full holiday stretch.

Temple crowds at midnight in Hong Kong
Incense smoke wafted into the air at a temple in Hong Kong where people line up every year to make wishes for the new year at midnight.
Holding up a cluster of incense sticks, many bowed their heads several times before planting the sticks in containers placed in front of a temple hall.

Fireworks light up skies in Vietnam
Entertainers in Vietnam sang at an outdoor countdown event before multiple fireworks shows at several cities in the Southeast Asian nation, where the festival is called Tet.
Light shows lit up bridges and skyscrapers as the fireworks went off and crowds clapped in rhythm to live pop music performances.

Chinese street fairs in Moscow
People sampled Chinese cuisine from stalls and strolled along snowy streets decorated with red lanterns and dragons as two weeks of events got underway Monday at various venues in the Russian capital.
The third annual Lunar New Year celebration comes at at time of warming relations between China and Russia — ties that have frustrated many European governments because of the war in Ukraine.

A temple bell rings 108 times in Taiwan
The solemn peal of a temple bell rang out 108 times — an auspicious number — as people flocked to the Baoan Temple in Taipei on Tuesday morning.
They lit incense sticks, bowed their heads and left offerings of colorful flower bouquets on outdoor tables on the temple grounds in Taiwan’s capital city.
MDT/AP