MINERSVILLE - While Schuylkill County is about 7,000 miles away from mainland China, the Chinese New Year is still celebrated locally by some families.
Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year celebration, which this year in the Chinese Zodiac is the Year of the Snake. Those born snake years are said to be wise and intense with a tendency towards physical beauty.
Ricky Yeung, owner of Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant in Kings Village Plaza, Minersville, said Thursday that the Chinese New Year tradition is a time to reconcile, forget all grudges and wish peace and happiness to everyone.
On Saturday night, Yeung held a dinner with this family at his restaurant, when they also counted down to the new year.
"We have a big dinner together just like you would on Thanksgiving," he said Thursday.
Yeung said the feast would be only for his family and would include chicken, roast duck, pork and other sweet delicacies.
"Roast duck is very popular," Yeung said.
It also included traditional Chinese dishes that he said his customers wouldn't enjoy such as chicken feet and seafood.
According to Yeung, for the celebration people put up decorations that are red, a popular color, but he won't be putting up decorations at his restaurant this year.
"I didn't decorate here this year because of the storm coming up," Yeung said. "It might get messed up."
Another important tradition during the celebration is that tiny red paper envelopes are given out with money in them, much like the giving of gifts at Christmas.
"All the parents put money in it and on New Years Day, they give it to the kids," Yeung said. "On Christmas you give presents, but we give money so they can buy whatever they like. That's very important. Kid's love this thing when New Year's comes since it's just like Christmas."
While Yeung said these traditions aren't present in the U.S., besides maybe in larger cities such as New York City and Philadelphia, in China, schools are closed for two weeks for the major holiday and large factories are closed for three days so workers can spend time with their families.
"Every Chinese New Year ends with a Dragon Dance," Yeung said.
Dragon dances are performed at to scare away evil spirits and during the dance, performers hold poles and raise and lower the dragon costume.
The parade starts on New Year's Day and continues for 15 days, while he said that he thinks it occurs sometime in the first seven days in NYC.
"It's kind of slowing down in this country, but it's still so popular in China," Yeung said.