Vancouver Chinese New Year Parade to be celebrated in-person
Posted January 2, 2023 12:38 pm.
Last Updated January 2, 2023 12:40 pm.
After two years being held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vancouver Chinatown Spring Festival Parade will be back as an in-person event on Lunar New Year, its organizers say.
The festivities will take place on Sunday Jan. 22, starting at 11 a.m. The parade will start at the Millennium Gate on Pender Street to the junction of Keefer and Abbott streets.
The day-long celebrations will kickstart with lion and dragon dances on that stretch.
The parade will be followed by cultural performances at the David Lam Hall of the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver on Pender Street, and a gala dinner at Floata Seafood Restaurant on Keefer Street.
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Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is reportedly set to attend the event.
According to the organizers, the event has attracted more than 4,000 participants and some 100,000 spectators in previous years pre-pandemic.
Alongside the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, the event is co-organized by the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver, Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association, S.U.C.C.E.S.S., Chinese Freemasons Vancouver Branch, and Shon Yee Benevolent Association of Canada.
The organizers are hoping that this gathering, which will coincide with the Chinese community ushering in the Year of the Rabbit, will encourage more people to go back to Chinatown in 2023.
Dragon dancers at the Chinese Lunar New Year parade in 2018. (CityNews 1130)
Vancouver’s Chinese community has faced a string of racism attacks in the last few years, with the hope of resolving these issues — which also include social disorder and vandalism — pinned on the election of Sim, the city’s first mayor of Chinese descent.
Among Sim’s promises to the community was his intention to hire 100 new police officers, along with 100 mental health nurses, in what Sim referred to as “a renewed approach to community policing.”
Sim likewise promised the establishment of task forces to address a “dramatic” rise in hate crimes, a 24-hour drug recovery centre, and a “Vancouver Police Department graffiti abatement” program.
With files from Greg Bowman
