PHOTO GALLERY: Lunar New Year celebration
Published 2:10 pm Tuesday, February 5, 2019
By Chris Moore
chris.moore@panews.com
Dozens of people filled Tat Plaza on Gulfway Drive to celebrate the Lunar New Year on Tuesday.
Firecrackers, drums and dragons warded off the bad luck of last year as the show, which lasted nearly 15 minutes, brought in the Year of the Pig.
Farmers Insurance Agent Johnathan Tat hosted the celebration in front of his building.
The dragons danced to the music from the drums as hundreds of firecrackers exploded and filled the air with smoke.
“It’s a great celebration,” he said. “The dragons go into the businesses and get rid of any bad luck. That’s why we have the firecrackers and drums, too. It’s all tradition. We hide money in the cabbage for the dragons to find. We try to make it harder each year for them to get to it. Have to make them work for it.”
Tat hung the cabbage from the top of the overhang on the plaza. Performers stood on each other’s shoulders to retrieve the monetary good luck.
The pig is the 12th of the zodiac signs.
According to myths, the Jade Emperor decided to order the signs by the order in which they showed up to his party. Different legends have different reasons for the pig being the last to arrive from oversleeping to having to rebuild its house after a wolf destroyed it. Either way, the pig arrived last, cementing its place as the last sign.
