Parade held in Vancouver to celebrate Chinese New Year

More than 50,000 people flocked to the streets of Chinatown in Vancouver on Sunday to witness the annual parade to celebrate the Chinese New Year, an event dating back to 1979.

The cool weather, forecast around 7 degrees Celsius, didn't deter the crowd from lining along the 1.3-km route of the parade, which usually is the closing event of the Canadian city's annual Spring Festival celebration.

More than 3,000 participants joined in the celebration, including a host of officials and politicians from the federal, provincial and municipal levels, such as British Columbia Premier Christy Clark and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

Also in attendance was James Moore, the federal Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, who spoke of the important role Chinese played in building Canada, especially in British Columbia where the early Chinese settlers built the railroad that contributed to the country's 1867 confederation.

"From the beginning, all the way through until today, the Chinese community is a central part of British Columbia's identity and they contributed to Canada's history and we're thankful for it," he said.

Mayor Robertson noted the parade participants represented the diverse population mix in the city, currently home to around 420,000 ethnic Chinese, about 17 percent of the area's population.

A large portion of the parade participants are descendants of the old-time Guangdong families who came to Canada more than 100 years ago, while others are relatively newcomers from China's Hong Kong, China's Taiwan, and increasingly, China's mainland.

"It's a combination of celebrating the history ... we're very proud of that and this is a time when we celebrate on our streets," Robertson said.

Tony Lam, chairman of the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association, the parade organizer, said it is the association's goal to reflect the diversity of Vancouver, a multicultural city with nearly 2.5 million population, by inviting other groups to participate.

In addition to marching bands, lion and dragon dancers and other performers from local Chinese communities, this year's parade also had participants from other local communities.

"This year we have lots of different groups of people, like the Vietnamese, Korean, natives and also Mexicans," said Hong Kong immigrant Lam. "Lots of people join us for the parade, join us for performance, so we have multicultural people join the Chinese parade."

The parade marked the end of a busy week of Chinese New Year celebrations in the Vancouver area that included a gala show, a temple fair and a Year of the Snake variety show, among others.