View File PhotoLohan School of Shaolin cast members perform a lion dance during the Chinese New Year celebration at Chinatown Plaza last year. A 162-foot dragon operated by a team of three dozen dancers will be part of this year?s celebration, set for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Feb. 17 at the 4255 Spring Mountain Road plaza.
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A huge Chinese New Year celebration is planned from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Feb. 17 at Chinatown Plaza, 4255 Spring Mountain Road.
The plaza features colorful Tong Dynasty architecture, setting the scene for the festivities.
All day long, Pan Asian foods will be available in various cuisine styles, including Hong Kong, Canton, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai and Hawaiian. Kiosks will be set up for market-style shopping, and the center's stores and restaurants, featuring Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese cuisine, all plan to be open for business.
Entertainment is scheduled between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Expect Japanese Taiko drummers, Chinese folk dancing, Japanese-style dancing, Chinese martial arts, Tahitian dancers, a Philippine bamboo stick performance and Thai dancing. New this year will be an acrobatic team from China.
No Chinese New Year festival would be complete without the popular dragon dance, which banishes evil spirits and ushers in good luck. The dragon is 162 feet long and requires a choreographed team of three dozen dancers. Lion dancers will follow the tradition of chewing lettuce and letting it fall on the crowd.
"Having the lettuce hit you is considered good fortune," said Dashi Steven Baugh, whose nearby Lohan School of Shaolin provides the trained dancers for the $3,000 dragon.
Tina Lee, one of the coordinators, said she learned a lot from helping to organize entertainment for the festival last year.
"The kung fu demonstration is fast and exciting and the Chinese dancing is slow, so you need to (interspace them) to complement one another," she said. "If you had all the slow things all together, people would get bored."
The Chinese American Chamber of Commerce organizes the event each year, with the stated intent to make it the largest and most exciting New Year celebration in town.
This year marks the 13th year of the festival and is Las Vegas' first repeat of the Year of the Rat.
"The rat signifies being active and prosperous," said James Chen, organizer. "So, we think it's an exciting time."
This year, 5,000 attendees are expected.
Chen estimated the Asian population in Las Vegas is about 80,000, where 10 years ago it was about 20,000.
Chinese tourists likely will come to celebrate the New Year when it begins on Thursday, so most of them likely will be gone by the time Chinatown holds its festival, mid-cycle. However, Chen said that the recent free trade agreement between China and the United States would make for an increase in tourists from that country.
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