Madrid Welcomes Year Of Rabbit As Voted Europe´s 2nd Best Chinatown
Madrid will be putting on the style with a full range of activities as it joins the Chinese community in celebrating the Chinese New Year and welcome in the Year of the Rabbit on January 22 .
The programme, organized by the Madrid City Council, Embassy of China, Casa Asia and the Confucius Institute of Madrid has as its centrepiece a street parade in the Usera district of Madrid, where the majority of Madrid´s estimated 80,000 Chinese residents live.
The celebrations come as Madrid has been voted 2nd best Chinatown in Europe by the travel luggage storage platform Radical Luggage.
Luggage storage company, Radical Storage researched Chinatowns across Europe to visit.
The company analysed Chinatowns in Europe, looking at over 123,000 reviews at over 370 Chinese restaurants, to reveal the locations with the most food options, the largest number of restaurants per 100,000 per capita, the average rating of these resturants, the cheapest food, and the total events being held across the Chinatowns.
Madrid´s celebrations begin today, Friday 20th January, with “the painting of the eyes of the lions that will be part of the parade on Sunday, a Chinese tradition to wake up and attract luck in the new year”.
The traditional Festival of Light will be held tomorrow Saturday, January 21 with DJ Yang playing in the Pradolongo park and where luminous lanterns will be distributed to the audience.
At 8:00 p.m., the public will be able to enjoy a firework display specially designed for the Chinese New Year and promises to ” dye the sky and lake in the park with colour”.
The Usera street parade starts at midday on Sunday, with some 600 performers with a magical mix of costumes brought from China, giant dragons and lions, lanterns made by local children along with floats and bands.
Shows for all the family continue throughout the weekend including dance performances by the popular Chinese performer, Chang’E, traditional Chinese instrument guzheng and performances by local Chinese associations as well as a concert by Vilapain, one of Spain´s first Chinese singing rap, trap and R&B groups.
In addition there will be a ‘Free the Jade Rabbit’, an exciting outdoor escape room type game using history and curiosities of China as a theme to follow the clues of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, participants need to decipher enigmas in order to free the rabbit from the evil yellow emperor!
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