Chinese New Year’s Eve in Italy: all the events to celebrate it

The three Italian cities with the largest Chinese communities are Milan, Rome and Prato, and it is here that the most beautiful New Year parades take place. Chinese New Year in Prato this year will feature a large number of events, mostly taking place in the Gualchierina Square area. Among the program's activities will include theater performances, photo exhibitions, and tastings of typical Chinese New Year food. But the most anticipated moment will be the dragon and lion dance, traditional symbols that wish good luck to the whole community and drive away evil spirits.

In Rome, preparations for New Year's Eve are in full swing. Beijing and the Eternal City have been twinned since 1998. The main celebration is held in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in the Esquiline district. Many Chinese have settled in this area of the city, where you can find goods not only from China but from the entire Eastern market.

Milan is home to Italy's largest Chinese community, and it is here that New Year's Eve is at its most spectacular and atmospheric. In the famous Paolo Sarpi street, the heart of Milan's Chinatown, you can find restaurants, delicatessens, clothes shops, hardware shops and Chinese handicrafts open all year round.

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The Chinese New Year takes place during the second full moon of the year, in other words on the fifteenth day of the lunar month. The festival lasts 15 days and ends with the famous lantern festival, which this year will be held on 24th February. If you decide to celebrate this picturesque occasion here in Italy, read below to discover some elements of Chinese tradition to look out for.

China is the birthplace of gunpowder, so it's not surprising that fireworks are such an important part of the New Year celebrations. Fireworks are set off during the festivities at the stroke of midnight to symbolise the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. Along with the fireworks, bells are rung everywhere as a sign of good fortune for the coming year. Italy and China share this fascinating passion: it will be a sensational spectacle!

Both spectacular traditions have become symbols of Chinese New Year around the world. During the Dragon Dance and the less famous but equally evocative Lion Dance, huge crowds of people dance and sing through the streets of cities, carrying paper representations of these powerful animals in procession.

During the Lantern Festival, which marks the end of Chinese New Year, the streets are filled with colour: you can see flying and standing lanterns of all shapes and sizes everywhere. These lanterns are left on display all day and night and the spectacle is truly picturesque!

Wondering what to wear for the celebrations? Whatever you like, as long as it's red! There are many rituals in Chinese tradition to prepare for the New Year and one of them is to use the colour red for everything: for clothes, underwear, wrapping presents, decorating streets and doorways and, of course, letting beautiful red lanterns fly.

Chinese cuisine is one of the tastiest in the world and if you get peckish while strolling around the city, don't hesitate to stop at a Chinese restaurant or delicatessen to fully experience all the flavours and aromas of this ancient culture.

Here are some tips on what to eat on Chinese New Year's Eve in Italy to keep up with tradition. The Chinese pay maniacal attention to the preparation of dishes during the New Year: each one has its meaning and must be served according to a precise ritual.

Fish, for example, is a symbol of abundance and a good omen for a year full of good fortune. To attract good luck, however, this dish should be eaten last. Dumplings symbolise wealth, so during some New Year's Eve dinners, some cooks insert a small copper coin inside a dumpling and whoever finds it will become rich. Spring rolls symbolise prosperity, agglutinated rice cake brings growth, rice noodles happiness and long life. Sweet rice balls are a symbol of family harmony

February 10th, 2024 will mark the beginning of the Year of the Wooden Dragon: according to Chinese astrology, this year will be characterized by the influences this animal offers to all the signs of the zodiac. Representing the values of ambition, day-dreamer leadership, enthusiasm, pronounced romantic temperament, competition, enterprise, open-handedness, wisdom, uprightness, and independence, the stars predict a fortunate period of peace and greater harmony than previous ones, in which one can recover the energy lost through stress and re-establish a more stable emotional balance.

The symbolism of the Wooden Dragon, regarded by the Chinese as a symbol of power and control,  trustworthiness, and stability, thus it invites us to face any difficulty in life with a collaborative and growth-oriented approach. It combines the strength, magnetism, charisma, self-confidence, creativity, and design flair of the Dragon with the abundance of the element wood.

In Chinese astrology being born in a particular year has a great symbolic importance, whose totem animal constitutes a definite spiritual and psychological imprint. In the case of those born in the year of the Wooden Dragon, they are considered very tenacious and patient, resilient to the problems they take on daily.

But living the year of one's zodiac sign, considered as the origin of life, represents a challenge for the Chinese, meaning a period of complex but necessary challenges and problems for one's spiritual growth. In any case, useful expedients can be implemented for all zodiac signs to ward off bad luck, including wearing red-colored clothing, and precious stones such as jade or crystal jewelry.