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Gibraltar marks the Chinese Year of the Rooster

The Chinese New Year was celebrated on the Rock yesterday, with traditional lion dances and martial art displays performed in the presence of the Governor Lieutenant General Edward Davis, the Minister for Economic Development Joe Bossano and hundreds of locals.
This year is the year of the Rooster.

The martial arts display was performed by students from the London-based Henglong Wushu Club, whose President Grand Master Wu Bin is master to the star Jet Li.
The Club’s Director and Chief Instructor, Shuifu Lin, orchestrated the lion dance and martial arts display.
Gibraltar’s local Tai Chi Club also performed.

The event was organised by a non-profit organisation the Gibraltar Chinese Association. Its president Yongnan Zhang addressed the crowd via his translator Johnson Zhang.
“Ladies, Gentlemen, friends we wish you a very happy Chinese New Year and we welcome Lu Haitian a counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in London, Minister Joe Bossano together with our Governor Mr Davis.”
He went on to thank everyone for supporting the event including the Gibraltar Government, Chinese Embassy and local businesses.

Last year was the first Chinese New Year celebration on the Rock.
“This year it is the year of the Rooster and we hope to continue this journey of celebrations and that it gets better and better in the future,” said Mr Y Zhang.

Mr Haitian also wished everyone a happy Chinese New Year when he took the microphone and explained the festival.
“The Chinese New Year is a beginning of the Chinese Roman calendar, we call it the spring festival, it symbolises the ending of the cold winter and the coming of the warm spring,” he said.
“Everything comes back to life. It is time for families to get together and share in happiness. It is time to show your love, to show you care for the aged, for the weak and to give encouragement to the young children.”

Mr Bossano also addressed everyone present expressing deeply his wishes to the Chinese people present that they have a happy New Year and to thank the members of the UK Embassy for making the journey out to Gibraltar for the celebrations.
“We are very happy to see you here, we are very happy to see the Chinese community which is now part of the Gibraltarian family,” he said.
“We pride ourselves in our country in being multi-cultural, multi religious and tolerant of the views of everybody and therefore we welcome into the Gibraltarian family people from all parts of the world.”
“All of us are the children of immigrants; we all came here at some time in the last 300 years.”
Also present was First Secretary and Consul of the Chinese Embassy in London, Fan Zhonghua, William Tan and Alicia Bowry from the Chinese Association in Gibraltar.

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