Chinese and Lunar New Year - which is which? Buy books in London and Celebrate in Singapore

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year Books  Books in Daunt's book shop in Hampstead featured Chinese new Year. 

A tall man, exclaimed, 'My wife is Korean and she wouldn't like that. She says, "It's not Chinese New Year, it's lunar New Year!" '

I thought it was time somebody wrote a book called lunar New Year. I looked around the bookshop and found several people had.

Also books on an assortment of festivals.

Lunar New Year

I read it up on Wikipedia. There's lunar new year, solar new year, and if that wasn't enough, there's lunisolar new year. 

If you want a simple explanation, go to Simple Wiki or look at a book for children.

Chinese New Year 

Chinese New Year is celebrated in China and Hong Kong, Taiwan, Chinatowns worldwide including London, England, the USA and Canada. 

Singapore Lion Dance

When I was in Singapore all year I would pass building which were the headquarters of Lion Dance groups. The week around Chinese New Year, lion dance groups would perform for free, often sponsored, in public places, outside railway stations, in shopping malls, utside and inside restaurants, at clubs, and in homes for weekend or midweek parties.  

In Singapore the lunisolar festival is also called the Spring Festival and although this year, 2025, it is celebrated at the start, the weekend 29 until the lantern festival. However, I saw orange lanterns all through Chinese New Year in Singapore in shopping malls and hotels.

Lo Hei - Singapore Style

Other features are the Chinese New Year dinner dish, invented in a hotel. In the centre of each round dinner table are placed vegetables of different colours sliced up on a large circular platter, with pink salmon or other fish, condiments, and it all tossed in the air with chopsticks, the higher the better for good luck, whilst shouting good luck messages in Chinese. Lo Hei. You can buy party sets of the vegetables in supermarkets. The price varies according to size, whether chopsticks for all and a platter are included, and whether the fish is included. Occasionally there's a deal such as a discount coupon for fresh fish bought with the vegetables.

Meanwhile, back in the bookshops in London, you can buy books as gifts so you and your family can read all about it.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_New_Year

Martial Hub Cafe - The Lion Dance Place Where You, Adults and Children, Can Try Lion Dance Costumes & Drums

 

Martial Hub Cafe, Desker Road, Singapore, with lion dance costumes and drums.

Modern Martial Hub Cafe

At number Martial Hub Cafe 107 is ultra modern.  White walls. Red lion dance costume hang overhead. If you are lucky, or unlucky, you might see a lion dance with lots of noisy drumming and clashing of cymbals. You can try out the drums and lion dance costumes.

With lion dances. A popular venue for a couple of Toastmasters International groups. 

Food and Drink

Offers tea and coffee for about 7 dollars sing. A plate of potato fries with a little cheesey sauce was shared by two or three of us. 

The lion dance in the background was a bit challenging as several of us were reading from the book Grief and Us for a book launchl Who would imagine that so many authors, smartly dressed and happy to meet other authors,were people who had suffered bereavements or severe setback. Merry widows, sharing their secrets of recovery. We started with a lady whose solace was music. I chose not to read from the chapter which I wrote - leaving that for the buyers to enjoy reading. I spoke about how suicide an be prevented, which is my latest topic for apseeces at Toastmasters International.  

Afterwards, five of us popped across the road, literally, to the Biriani restaurant.

Really.

Martial Hub Cafe

107 Desker Road

Singapore 209629

Open from noon. Closed Monday. Till 6 pm on Sunday, til 11 pm Friday and Saturday, til 10 pm midweek.

+65 98330257

martialhub83@gmail.com

https://food.grab.com/sg/en/restaurant/martial-hub-cafe-107-desker-road-delivery/4-C3XFA3JEGALEVA

https://www.martialhubcafe.com

Astonishing, Agile Lion Dance On Columns, Plus Rabbits At The Tanglin Club Celebrating Chinese New Year in Singapore

 

After entertaining the crowd in the lobby, the lion took a tour of the building, visiting the kitchen, The Tavern restaurant, and other parts of the building.

Useful Websites

https://www.tanglinclub.org.sg/reciprocal-clubs.html

Cheerful Chinese New Year Lion Dance and Dragon Dance

Flag of China

You can't visit China now because of the quarantine over the Wuhan virus, but you can see a lion dance in many places.

I saw a lion dance in Singapore. The lion dance has two people with poles, hidden, holding up the lion head. I have seen both several times in Singapore.For Chinese New Year and openings of restaurants and businesses.


Singapore flag

 First I saw the large lion faces on the ground.


I've got my eyes on you. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

First I notice the big yellow and red lion's faces.

Then the red shirts of the team of men doing the lion dance.

The music started up. I'm not a fan of noise. But the music was mesmerizing. Even more so, the colours and the movement.

The lions danced into the restaurant and out again, delighting the onlookers, children, adults, the elderly.

Then the dancers gathered together in a line and lifted the head and body for the Dragon Dance.

The clashing music started.

The sticks, not bamboo which I imagined was used in the old days, but metal tubes, were used to raise the long lion body. More a snake than a lion.

They whirled, they twirled, they acted in unison, one after another, up and down, like a Mexican wave of the audience, standing and sitting and standing at a football match. A diagonal circle. A spiral. The music was jarring but the images were soothing. The colours were entrancing. The spectacle was mesmerizing.


Dragon Dance at Buona Vista mall beside the MRT railway station, Singapore. Photos and videos by Angela Lansbury

Several times I tried to walk away. When the music stopped. Then the music started again. I turned  to look back. I ran back. I stood at the back. Another photographer steeped sideways blocking my vision. I moved forward to take a better picture.

So, sort out the dragon dance, the lion dance and the tiger dance. The dragon dances are performed in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Chinatowns in Canada, the UK and USA and Chinese restaurants and businesses worldwide. The tiger dance is performed in India, Indonesia, Japan and Nepal.


Celebrations in Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_dance
singaporeair.com
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Singapore

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Google Local Guide eg Braddell Heights Community Centre, Singapore, and worldwide activities

Club Tampines West, Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problem
How do you give brief but useful information about a Community Club in Singapore or anywhere?
First, how do you find it? Google maps. The map on the nearby MRT station. Look for a large building with the sign club outside.

Answer
I wrote this about Braddell Heights Community Club in Singapore and the nearby MRT underground station.

DIRECTIONS
From Serangoon MRT take escalators to exit F (fewer escalators than the other set of escalators which exit to the shopping mall). Along the corridor you emerge by bus stops. The Community Centre (changed name to Community Club in 2018 to sound more friendly) is a large building, same side, to your right, on the corner. Compact building with office, signboards and lift the lobby.

ACTIVITIES
Open to all. Non-members pay slightly more. Many activities are courses such as martial arts, Lion Dance group, singing, crafts, for children or adults, seasonal events. However, you can often drop into either the Mandarin speaking Toastmasters' International speaking club or one of the three English speaking Toastmasters clubs held on three of the five Saturday afternoons each month.   

EATING
No eating place is inside but a hawker centre is diagonally across the road junction beyond the HDB housing block; or go back to Nex shopping mall beside Serangoon MRT railway station. 

I could say much more for the Google reader, but the text would be too long for Google browsers. What else have I not said? This community club is one of my two favourites, because of its nearness to the MRT (trains every three to five minutes) and the number of English language activities. My other favourite is Cairnhill, near Newton MRT, with about nine English language Toastmasters clubs plus one Mandarin and one bilingual English and Malay.

You could also check out the Community clubs website which lists the clubs all over Singapore. 

PHOTO
I am in two minds about putting up a photo.

Inside the atrium of Braddell Heights Community Club. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Useful Websites (Alphabetically by country)

EUROPE / GERMANY
The Rathaus, not a rat house but what we in the UK call a town hall. Normally the historic building is on the main square of each city. The big basement with columns and carvings usually has a bustling cafeteria serving reasonably-priced local food. Signs on walls and tables tell you about activities and local events.















Bremen town hall or Rathaus. Source Wikipedia article on Bremen. Photo by Pederec.

I remember that Bremen in north Germany has a typical, striking basement cafeteria.

In France the town hall is called the hotel de ville.

SINGAPORE
https://www.pa.gov.sg/our-network/community-clubs
TOURIST INFORMATION
https://www.visitsingapore.com/see-do-singapore/socialiser/?cmp=SEM_LEISURE-EATDRINK-NIGHTLIFE
SINGAPORE AIRLINES
singaporeair. com

CLUBS
toastmastersinternational.com/find-a-club

UK
Cities have events and activities in town halls, Arts Centres, churches, church halls, colleges, public libraries, pubs (the whole pub or a room upstairs), restaurants, schools, and theatres.  Look for the free newspapers in racks outside railway stations, in Tourist Information Centres, 
and in supermarkets and outside newsagents and the shops of estate agents (property agents).

USA
Just google 'community centres near me' and you will get suggestions for each city.

Author 
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.