More than one billion people around the world, from China to the Philippines to the Diaspora communities in the United States, began celebrating the Lunar New Year on Tuesday with fireworks, family time and holidays.
On Wednesday, the first new moon of the year of the snake will mark the impending arrival of spring.
Known as Seollal in South Korea and Tet in Vietnam, the beginning of the Lunisolar year is the most important holidays in many Asian countries. In China, it urges the largest annual immigration in the world. Hundreds of millions of bravely blocked roads, railway stations and airports, many who are leaving the big cities in their homeland.
New Year traditions for the lunar year vary in all countries, but similar yarns run throughout: family time, prosperity rituals and honors the ancestors and festivals of the marathon. Many flocks in the temples to place traditional food offers and light incense on altars for ancestors and elders.
In China, children receive red files as blessings from their relatives. In Southeast Asia, the sponsors of dragons, believed to bring good luck, prosperity and rain, are kept on the streets – and sometimes underwater.
Here is how people said goodbye to the year of the dragon and welcomed the year of the snake:
