Dear All,
May I share with you how some Vietnamese/Chinese celebrate their Chinese New Year in Melbourne?
Melbourne is the second most populated capital city after Sydney in Australia. Within Melbourne, there are four suburbs where Vietnamese/Chinese shops dominate the local shopping centers. They are Footscray, Springvale, St Albans and Richmond. Around lunar New Year every year, these suburbs will take turns to host festivals to celebrate Chinese New Year at different weekends. Typically, roads will be blocked off so that food stalls and games can be organized in the middle of the streets.
My family happened to be in Footscray last weekend when it was having the New Year celebration. (See http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbd_photo/ ) If the cultural events (or the lack of it) in this festival were not impressive, the food stalls have done a good job. Maybe, you can get all of these snacks and local dishes in Little Saigon (in the US) or Sydney (Australia) every day, but for a Melbournian like me, seeing all these at one place at the same time is quite an experience. I would guess you cannot even see all these dishes in Paris Treizieme, and certainly not anywhere in Italy.
All the best for the New Year.
Trien
PS The attached photo is the skyline of Melbourne central business district from Brighton beach.