Walnut to Celebrate Chinese New Year Saturday

Walnut plans to get a jump start on the celebration of the upcoming Chinese New Year.

The Sing Tao Chinese New Year Festival comes to Creekside Park from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, ushering in the year of the snake.

Admission to the event, organized by the Sing Tao Daily newspaper, the Chinese-American Parents Association of the Walnut Valley Unified School District, and the city of Walnut, is free. 

The festival will feature live entertainment, a dumpling making contest, a pet idol competition, an animal adoption event, and a K-9 showcase. Organizers plan to have both a food court and gourmet food trucks.

"I think it will be a very good event for the entire family," Mayor Mary Su said.

Chinese New Year officially comes on Feb. 10.

The dates of the holiday change every year on the Chinese calendar, which is based on solar and lunar goings on, according to a Huffington Post Canada article. The traditional calendar is used for major Chinese holidays.

More than a billion and a half people worldwide celebrate Chinese New Year, the website reported. The Year of the Snake is the halfway mark of the 12 Chinese astrological signs.

At a Walnut City Council meeting earlier this month, the city honored Sing Tao Daily, in part for its sponsorship of the festival each year. U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, presented Sau Kit Cheung, chief executive officer of Sing Tao, with a certificate of a appreciation along with the council members.

"It's a tremendous Chinese New York festival that your organize in this community," Royce said.

Councilman Eric Ching lauded the media company for sponsoring the festival for four years.

"This is enjoyed not by just our residents but residents from Covina, West Covina, Rowland Heights, even as far as Alhambra," he said. "People want to travel here and enjoy our festival."

Chinese New Year officially comes on Feb. 10.

Cheung said through an interpreter that Sing Tao's hope with the festival is that it brings a diverse community together.

"People coming to the festival (are) not only Chinese but also people from other (ethnicities)," he said. "We would like to see all of the (ethnic groups) in the community have more chances to get together.  We hope we can organize more events of this kind in the future and let people in the community have more fun together and communicate."