New Year is the most important traditional Chinese holiday of all, and Barcelona is already preparing for its 2024 edition. The Chinese yearbook is governed by the lunar calendar. That is why each year the dates vary from the Gregorian calendar we know. Thus, the Year of the Dragon in China will begin on February 10, 2024.
Since 2014 the city has been celebrating the “Any Nou Xinès amb Barcelona”, with a multitude of Chinese and Catalan entities in the city organizing a whole series of activities to celebrate this date. Although for many of you the New Year has just been celebrated, we tell you everything you need to know to celebrate a New Year with dragons instead of grapes.
The Great Spring Festival will fill the Passeig Lluis Companys
The central event of this Chinese New Year celebration in Barcelona will take place on Saturday, February 3 at Passeig Lluís Companys/Arc de Triomf, where throughout the day. From 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., a variety of traditional Chinese cultural performances are scheduled to welcome the Year of the Dragon.
There will be the traditional Gong Ring ing by the representative of the People’s Republic of China in Barcelona. From the Parc de l’Estació del Nord will begin the parade with a dragon that will travel through the streets of the city.
The procession will go up Roger de Flor and turn on Calle Alí Bei to reach Calle Nàpols, then take Ausiàs March, and when it meets Passeig Sant Joan, it will go down until it reaches Arc de Triomf, where the party will move.
In Arc de Triomf will be located a stage that will host dozens of shows of more than 40 Chinese, Catalan and communities such as Indian and Colombian cultural entities.
The morning shows are from 12 to 14 hours on the central stage (under the Arc de Triomf) and the afternoon shows are from 17 to 19 hours on the same stage.
During the day there will also be a gastronomic and cultural fair in Passeig Lluis Companys where you can find typical Chinese food and all kinds of objects and souvenirs of the Year of the Dragon.
In addition, throughout the midday there will be small format shows and workshops for children, dances, traditional dances and Kung Fu demonstrations.
All the information and complete program of the Chinese New Year 2024 central event can be consulted at this link.
Parallel activities until February 24
Throughout the month, the Barcelona City Council and various Chinese associations organize art and cooking workshops, lectures, language classes or film screenings, among other activities for the general public.
Check each of the activities and sign up here. Each activity has a specific date, although the program of parallel activities will last until February 24.
12 signs for 12 animals
According to legend, the Emperor of Heaven organized a race with all the animals to choose which of them would enter the horoscope. The first 12 to arrive were: the rat, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the pig.
Therefore, each Chinese year is assigned to one of these animals in a sequence that repeats every 12 years. Thus the Year of the Dragon, which is the fifth in the calendar, was celebrated in 1952, 1964, 1976, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, and now again in 2024.
The “Any Nou Xinès amb Barcelona” has been celebrated since 2014 thanks to the collaboration of various entities both Chinese and Catalan, and has had a great public and media impact, not only in Catalonia, but also in China.
In 2018 it received the special honorable mention in the Ciutat de Barcelona Awards of the Institute of Culture of Barcelona, in the category of Popular and Traditional Culture, as an example of “community work from a cross-cutting and citizen cohesion look”.