Chinese Spring Festival Fair opens in Dublin

A two-day fair to celebrate the Spring Festival, or the Chinese lunar New Year, opened here on Saturday, attracting hundreds of local residents.

Saturday marked the first day of the Chinese New Year for 2020, which fell on Jan. 25 this year, according to the Chinese lunar calendar.

Located inside a nearly 130-year-old building of Victorian era in downtown Dublin, the fair provided a lot of fun for members of the local Chinese community as well as for local residents and tourists.

Visitors to the fair were entertained with lion dance, performance of traditional Chinese dances and music, demonstrations of Chinese folk arts such as sugar painting and paper-cutting, and display of Kung Fu or martial arts.

Playing Chinese chess and table tennis or learning Chinese calligraphy were also part of the programs available on the fair.

A great variety of Chinese food such as dumplings and noodles were also provided at the fair.

A work shop to build a life-sized Chinese arch with recycled materials was set up for the first time at this year's fair in a bid to encourage people to be aware of climate change and environmental issues.

The Spring Festival Fair is a major part of Dublin Chinese New Year Festival, an annual event organized by Dublin City Council since 2008.

The festival kicked off on Thursday night and will run until Feb. 10 when a grand Spring Festival Gala will conclude the festival with a high note at the city's landmark building Convention Center Dublin.

"The Dublin Chinese New Year Festival is a fantastic platform to further Sino-Irish relations, to embrace key values shared by our two nations and to celebrate our differences through cultural exchange," said Dublin City Council Chief Executive Owen P.Keegan at a Thursday ceremony to launch this year's festival.

Deputy Mayor of Dublin Tom Brabazon said on the same occasion that "Chinese New Year is a very special time of year for members of the Chinese community and it is the perfect opportunity to recognize the considerable contributions of Chinese people in Ireland."

He said that in 2019 the Dublin Chinese New Year Festival attracted over 25,000 visitors, making it of one of the biggest of its kind in Europe.

"This figure looks set to grow this year with a fantastic programme of events lined up over the next two weeks," he said.