Portugal celebrates CNY with local presence

Chinese New Year was celebrated one week in advance in the Portuguese capital city of Lisbon, attracting Portuguese, Chinese and a group from Macau.

Although the new lunar year only commences on January 28, the celebrations in Lisbon were held early on January 21.

The festival was marked by a parade that started at Avenida Almirante Reis, continued down Rua da Palma, and ended by the Martim Moniz Square in central Lisbon.

Shu Jianping, an immigrant from Zhejian seven years ago, is the mentor of the Chinese New Year celebrations and has held this position for the past four years. A Counselor at the People’s Republic of China Embassy, Shu explained to Diário de Noticias, “The goal is to contribute to the integration of the Chinese. The community is well integrated but we want to make it even better, we want to have mutual understanding and, that is why this year and for the first time, we invited Portuguese groups to perform.”

Macau participated at the parade with the Pui Ching High School Dance Group.

From Zhejiang, from which most of the Chinese community living in the country originated, came the Opera company “Wu.” Wu features Chinese opera, dance and acrobatics. In addition to participating in the parade in Lisbon the group also performed in Porto the previous day.

Many of Chinese immigrants plan to return home this week to spend the festive season with their families. RM